New Delhi: The ICT Trends of India 2009 have proved that India has failed to enact a strong and stringent Cyber Law in India. On the contrary, the Information Technology Act 2008 (IT Act 2008) has made India a “safe heaven” for cyber criminals, say cyber law experts of India.

India has a very poor cyber crime conviction rate. As per DG of Corps of Detectives (CoD) D V Guruprasad the reason behind this is the officers themselves are clueless about cyber crime. It is of no use setting up cyber crime labs when the cyber criminals cannot be convicted. As for training judiciary and prosecutors this process should have initiated a long time back when the cyber-law was passed.

According to Praveen Dalal, Managing Partner of Perry4Law and the leading Techno-Legal Expert of India, “This was bound to happen as the government of India is not at all serious about tackling the menace of cyber crimes in India. Rather than strengthening the cyber law of India, it has diluted the same and made it criminal friendly through the Information Technology Act 2008”.

In the absence of a stringent cyber law of India and lack of proper techno-legal training of lawyers, judges and police officers not much can be expected from Indian legal and judicial system of India. A special emphasis must be given to the training of police officers, lawyers and judges in the field of cyber forensics.

India must engage in good capacity development initiatives rather than merely opening cyber crimes cells and achieving cyber crimes tackling capacities on papers alone. The first step must be to strengthen cyber law of India and then steps must be taken to provide adequate training to the players involved in dealing with cyber crimes in India, says Praveen Dalal.