Top priority for cyber law: Mahajan

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, APRIL 14. If everything goes according to plan, the Cyber Law (Information Technology Bill) should become a reality by the first week of June, Mr. Pramod Mahajan, Union Minister for Information Technology, told presspersons here tonight.

The Bill was now with the Standing Committee, and even if this panel submits its report by the last week of April, he would give top priority and get the measure passed in Parliament before May 17 (when the budget session concludes).

With the speed with which Information Technology was growing, ``it is essential that we have a proper legal framework in place as early as possible,'' he said. He did not foresee any problem in getting the Bill passed as there was no conflict or political opposition to it. The Bill was being scrutinised by the Standing Committee.

Mr. Mahajan said he had recently written to the apex court suggesting that at least one Bench of the Supreme Court and one each of the High Courts take up ``Technology Court'', for speeding up the judicial process.

During his visit to Singapore, he had seen electronic courts where ``video presence'' and video of witness deposition were accepted. But in India, ``we still have the system of getting undertrials to court''.

There were 20 million telephone homes and 30 million cable homes in the country. The benefit of `Convergence of technology'', could be passed on to the cable homes by using set top boxes. This would facilitate the use of TV as a computer and phone using the existing cable network as connectivity, he pointed out.

In reply to a question on the talk of merger of Ministries of Information Technology, Telecom and Broadcasting, he said that ideally-speaking these should go together as voice and video had to go on the same fibre network. However, going by the size of Ministries, ``I do not think practically justice can be done if they are combined and looked after by one person''.

Responding to another question on the opposition by the RSS to the Sankhya Vahini project to link up educational institutions, he said ``To the best of my knowledge, nobody told me that the project is being reviewed. I do not see any security problem. I have not asked for any enquiry. Moreover, it is not my department''.

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Section  : National
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