Does cyber-law have scope in India?

Pervin Malhotra
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Q.I am a first year LLB student. In view of the Internet and e-commerce boom, I am very keen on specialising in cyber law. Do you see any scope for this branch in India? — Manav Bedi

A.The internet’s ability to span across borders, demolish distances, and unite the world’s computer networks into a seamless whole may look wonderfully elegant to IT pros, but awfully messy to lawyers.

Previously cut-and-dried questions of legal jurisdiction — such as in which country a particular transaction took place — have now become terribly murky. Of late, disputes on cyber properties such as domain names, copyrights and patents have become more common than property disputes in the real brick and mortar world.

Cyber contracts are the fundamental building blocks of e-commerce. Cyber laws, the traffic rules for the information highway, are governed by the general principles of civil or criminal law, depending on the case.

In the post 9/11 scenario the Council of Europe and USA, Canada, South Africa and Japan have approved the International Cyber Crime Treaty — the first international treaty to control and regulate cybercrime and ensure cooperation among signatory nations for exchanging information concerning cybercrime.

India is the second country in Asia and the 12th in the world to have a separate Information Technology Act. This bold and path-breaking initiative to set up a regulatory and legal framework for e-commerce ensures that the shift from paper-based management to e-management is not stymied due to lack of a legal framework.

As more and more transactions go electronic, as video, audio, and text become easier to transmit over the Web, obviously disputes will arise. Naturally, lawyers specialising in Intellectual Property Rights (including patents, trademarks, copyrights and designs) will be needed to sort out the tricky copyright and patent issues.

Cracking down on the burgeoning cybercrime calls for cyber-savvy legal eagles specializing in techno-legal aspects such as digital signatures to safeguard business transactions on the Net, encryption codes, hacking, electronic records and some of the grey areas pertaining to Internet law for which there are no international benchmarks or models to rely on.

Issues of prime importance to cyber laws include jurisdiction issues, Internet security, intellectual property, freedom of speech, pornography, online gambling, internet auction fraud, fraudulent credit card transactions, cyber stalking, identity theft and privacy of an individual. A sunrise segment in law, Cyber Law has caught on with students in a big way. Several law schools and universities now offer courses in cyber law at the postgraduate level. You could start off as an assistant or junior practitioner or opt for a corporate career in the legal department of a large company or law firm. Else, you could join a reputed law firm and assist in research.

Should we shift Boards?

Q.Our son is studying in a boarding school under the ICSE Board. We have heard that students who intend to pursue engineering or medicine in college should ideally switch to CBSE board because the syllabus is more aligned to taking the competitive entrance exams for these courses. Is this true? If so, should we shift him to a CBSE school? As he’s well settled in the school, he’s not at all wanting to shift. He is a bright student who loves science, we are somewhat confused. What should we do? — Tirna Ghosh

A.The good news is that you don’t need to rock the boat — more so since your son is happy with the school where he is currently enrolled.

To precisely allay the misconception that you’ve cited, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Exams is revising the Class XI syllabus for physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics in a bid to bring about more uniformity with that of the CBSE —  both in terms of content and sequencing of chapters. Even the question papers are being rephrased to make for more standardisation with the CBSE and other competitive exams.

Class XI and XII are crucial years and we don’t want your son to waste precious time adjusting to a new scenario. The only thing you need to keep in mind is the facility for coaching for the competitive exams. If he wishes to go abroad for further studies, this will not be an issue. But he may need some expert guidance for JEE or the PMT.

Incidentally, over 2,000 schools and 2 lakh students are presently enrolled in the ICSE system.