IT offence is State subject

Declare cyber crime a federal offence: Sodhi

By Our Staff Reporter {source "The Hindu" newspaper website)

BANGALORE, JAN. 30 2005. Cyber crimes must be declared as "federal crimes" and "included in List 1 (Union List) of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution," the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, N.K. Sodhi, has said.

If this is done, cyber crime will then be brought under the purview of Article 246 (1) of the Constitution.

At the valedictory session of a three-day international seminar on `Information Technology Law and Governance' here on Sunday, Mr. Sodhi called the IT Act of 2000, "highly inadequate" as it was silent on cyber crime.

Articles 245 to 254 of the Constitution deal with the distribution of legislative powers between the Union and the States. Article 246 says Parliament has "exclusive powers to make laws" with respect to any matter detailed in List 1 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

Cyber terrorists, Mr. Sodhi said, need no weapons and can remain anonymous. They can hack into a hospital network to alter patients' prescriptions and kill them or gain access to an airport's computer system and, by simply changing a decimal point, vary the altitude of aircraft causing them to collide.

Information technology can speed up work in the judiciary, he said. The United States, Singapore, Australia, and the United Kingdom use IT extensively. In Andhra Pradesh, he said, undertrials are produced before magistrates using video links. "This brings in transparency and accountability," he said.

Reasons

At an earlier session on cyber crime, N. Balakrishnan from the Super Computer Education and Research Centre at the Indian Institute of Science, said cyber crime — tax evasion, cheating on the Net, identity theft, child pornography and so on — caused a loss of $ 50 billion annually.

His department has analysed the reasons for cyber crime.

"In India, it is politically motivated while globally, politics is the last motivation for such crimes," he said.

K.T.S. Tulsi, senior advocate, stressed that laws by themselves will not work if the district magistrates and police officers are not trained to deal with cyber crime.

Some times laws also blocked new technology such as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) which is hailed in the West. "Those who use it here are being prosecuted," he said.

Mr. Tulsi also described the arrest of the Bazee.com Chief Executive Officer, Avnish Bajaj, in connection with the Delhi Public School `MMS case' as illegal.

A.K. Ganguli, another senior advocate, wanted a regulatory body to monitor data on the Net.

Fali S. Nariman, president of the Bar Association of India, presided over the session.

Santosh N. Hegde, judge of the Supreme Court, Mohan Parasaran, Additional Solicitor-General, Paul Nemo, president of the conference organiser, Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA), and C. S. Vaidyanathan, national vice-president UIA, spoke.