Legislative Intervention for Combating Cyber Crimes in India

Dr. Sapam Dilipkumar Singh *

Emergence of state system in human society has brought a radical change in all sphere of the life of individuals irrespective of cast, creed, gender and religion. The state owes its obligation to protect the life, liberty and property of each and every subject of the state as the authority and power of the state actually derive people.

The administration of criminal justice constitutes one of the primary functions of the state, which is indispensable for maintenance of peace and tranquility in a politically organized society and it also refers to using the force of the state to maintain law and order in such politically organized society for which it circumscribes to enact of laws and establish courts and other law enforcement agencies as well.

Crime is as old as human society. It is an act prohibited by law which is the expression of the will of the state. With the help of law, every human society has been endeavouring to prevent and reduce the occurrence of crimes in society. Even though crime is contextual, some crimes are universal in their nature and character in the sense that such acts are obviously disapproved or prohibited by laws as well as the conscience of the people.

Considering that law changes according to the need of the society, many acts which were treated as crimes in the past are no longer crimes in the present; however, new acts are required to be declared as crimes according to the changes of human society. It was seen in the history that industrial revolution has brought drastic change in the body of rules across the world that has led to codification of many laws for the protection of worker’s rights.

In the same way, with the advancement of science and technology, particularly, the evolution of information and technology in the present century has necessitated nation states to enact laws to cope with the emerging set of acts which are extremely needed to control, because of their devastating effect in all respects in any given society. Cyber crimes are the emerging flip side of the revolution of information technology.

The unique characteristic of cyber crime is that it has no national boundary. Acknowledging such effect of cyber crime, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted dozens of resolutions, such as resolution no. 55/63 for combating the criminal misuse of information technology in 2000. In the similar way, the Economic and Social Council has also adopted resolution no. 211/ 33 for the prevention, protection and international co-operation against the use of new information technology to abuse and/or exploit children in 2011.

However, the UN has not been able to negotiate and adopt a specific global treaty for the prevention and combating cyber crime in the line of promotion and protection of human rights, other than the adoption of the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. Nonetheless, the UN resolutions are recognized as subsidiary means of the sources of international law under Article 38 of the Statute of International Court of Justice, to which nation states ought to abide by.

Combating cyber crime is not exception to Indian society, as the country has been striving to bring about a digital revolution in governance. The parliament has enacted the Information Technology Act.2000 and also brought a major amendment to the Indian criminal laws, such as the Indian Evidence Act, the Indian Penal Code, among other to deal with emerging threat of cyber crimes.

In this context, the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB) has also started documentation of the incidence of cyber crimes as separate genre of crimes in India in view of the increasing trend of cyber crimes. The NCRB reported that a total of 9,622 cases were registered under the cyber crimes in 2014 as compared to 5,693 cases registered during the previous year which shows an increase of 69% over the previous year.

The real meaning of law lies in its effective implementation. Understanding of law in letter and spirit by the law enforcement agencies of the state are the imperative and people are also required to make known the implications of relevant laws for the realization of the objective of all laws.

Law relating to cyber crime is new to the law enforcement agencies since such crimes are of recent origin. With the proliferation of cyber space, it could reach in the traditional and poor families’ of the most underdeveloped regions of the North – East India where literacy rate is also low.

In such situation, people need to be educated about cyber crimes and also the legitimate state agencies ought to be ready for combating the emerging threat of cyber crime.