The Hindu : New Delhi News : Law & Order: IT Act under scanner

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Law & Order: IT Act under scanner

Devesh K. Pandey

THE RECENT video clip case that rocked the country has sparked off a serious debate on the feasibility and efficacy of the Information Technology Act in the wake of the arrest of the Baazee.com Chief Executive Officer and an American citizen, Avnish Bajaj. While it is now for the judiciary to decide if in doing so the police enforced the law in its letter and spirit, angry outbursts calling for amendments to the Act have left many people wondering whether the law has become a matter of convenience to some.

From the perspective of the common man, the arrest of Mr. Bajaj appears to be a rather uncalled for and extreme step taken by the police as he had already made himself available for the probe. While some blame it on the inexperience of the police in dealing with the IT Act, others feel that it was an attempt by the law enforcing agency to send across a strong message that such an offence would not be tolerated and that all were equal before the law of the land.

Hacking and other Internet-related crimes apart, cyber-crime experts feel that pornography has become a major problem for all those working across the globe to rid it of all its evils. Over the years, pornographic sites have increased manifold to become the largest source of revenue in the cyber world.

On the other hand, laws enacted the world over to check cyber crimes are still in their nascent stage as the law-makers are taking a long time to assess the far-reaching consequences of this virtual world where practically no information is believed to be completely secure. There are, however, software packages now available in the market to provide some protection to computer systems.

Interestingly, conventional law and order rules were framed keeping in mind the problems afflicting society, but in the case of the Internet it was an entirely different scenario as it did not involve any rules and had no boundaries when opened to the market.

When countries entangled in the Internet web realised that it had the potential to jeopardise their vital interests, they began formulating rules as per their individual requirements. And this is where they failed to solve the problem of jurisdiction as the cyber world knows no boundaries. They did not realise that there was a need for a joint effort to set up a universal system of governance in order to book every offender. Consequently, there are certain excesses on Internet which are termed as criminal offence in India, whereas they are not treated the same way in other countries.

Taking advantage of such loopholes, perpetrators go scot-free. The same goes for those owning pornographic sites with servers located outside India. In addition, it appears that several people who are into computer business find it hard to spend extra on their systems to make them function in consonance with the law of the land.

Of course, things have started looking up lately with the world preparing to lay down common rules for all. But in doing so, countries like India must not compromise with their basic State policies.

When concerns are being raised over the economic fallout of the police action and an urgent need to do a rethink on the IT Act, law-makers will have to choose between sheer economics and values on which the Indian society thrives.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi