Thursday, January 23, 2014

Cyber Law Of India Must Be Scrapped Says Praveen Dalal

Law and technology are never on the same page. While law takes its own time to formulate and mature yet technology marches at a speed much beyond the law to catch and grasp. The same is happening in the case of Indian cyber law.

In the year 2000 a regulatory framework was introduced by Indian parliament to regulate transactions in the Indian cyberspace. India was new to this field and it considered the models suggested by foreign countries. That is well understandable as at that point of time India lacked the expertise in this regard.

However, what is frustrating is that even after 13 years of enactment of the information technology act, 2000, Indian parliament still lacks the techno legal expertise to enact a proper cyber law. According to media reports, the cyber law of India is in a bad condition. The Indian cyber law has started showing signs of decaying cyber law legislation rather than a maturing enactment. Even the techno legal experts have expressed their dissatisfaction with the present cyber law of India.

According to Praveen Dalal, managing partner of New Delhi based ICT law firm Perry4Law and leading techno legal expert of Asia, the Cyber Law of India should be repealed. According to Dalal, the present Cyber Law of India is suffering from many Irregularities and Unconstitutionalities. He believes that the Cyber Law of India must be scrapped and dedicated laws must be enacted for various fields like Cyber Law, Cyber Security, Cyber Forensics, E-Governance, etc.

These concerns are valid and genuine. The information technology act started as a piece of legislation for e-commerce and e-governance. Now it is transformed into an instrumentality of state oppression and e-surveillance. However, the real problem is how Indian parliament would enact these techno legal frameworks that required sound techno legal expertise that is presently missing.

Many provisions of the IT Act 2000 are violative of civil liberties protection in cyberspace. Some of the rules and regulations made under the IT Act, 2000 are already challenges before none other than the Supreme Court of India. It would be only prudent if Indian government scraps the IT Act, 2000 and come up with constitutionally valid legal framework.