Today’s Indian Express surprisingly carried an article titled “Crash Course in Cyber Laws for Tech-Savvy Judiciary” in which the forgotten institution called “Cyber Appellate Tribunal” was remembered. The article speaks of the growing Cyber Crime risks in the country and the need to train the Judges. It indicates that the Union Law Ministry is contemplating training programs across the Country through Judicial Academies to increase awareness of Cyber Laws.
The undersigned is already involved in such programs and would welcome the move of the ministry to expand this further.
What may be noted is that so far it was the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology which was addressing the needs of Cyber Laws and the Law Ministry was not in the picture. Now that the same Minister heads both the ministries, it appears that the controls are getting passed to the Law Ministry either completely or partially.
The article made a passing mention Cyber Appellate Tribunal (CAT) acknowledging that it has remained dysfunctional for some time now. The undersigned has been on a relentless mission to get the Cyber Appellate Tribunal re-activated and has been sending representations to all the concerned executives. Even yesterday, a detailed representation has been sent to the Chief Justice of India with the hope that action would be taken up to appoint the Chair person for CAT. It is good that this article has drawn attention to the existence of this non functioning office.
It must be also mentioned that the earlier representations of the undersigned as well as the one sent yesterday have all been also referred to the Minister of Communications and IT as well as the Prime Minister and others. But so far there has been no positive response.
The Narendra Modi Government which has indicated a big push to E Governance has also failed to respond to E Mails and messages sent through PMO India website indicating that the Government is still far from being ready for E-Governance. The representation of yesterday has therefore been sent by the good old “Snail Mail” and I hope it will reach the desk of the relevant Ministers and elicit a response.
In the light of such lack of response to E Mail communications, from the Government, it was surprising that some body from the Government was speaking of Cyber Laws and need for training of the Judiciary.
I hope the winds of change will now begin to appear and congratulate the Law Ministry for taking the lead when the IT Ministry has abdicated its responsibility.
Naavi
