Proposal to set up Bangalore bench of Cyber Appellate Tribunal

Karnataka IT Secretary M.N. Vidyashankar (left) and Cyber Law College Director N.A. Vijayshankar at a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday. Photo: K. Gopinathan

A proposal has been given to set up a bench of Cyber Appellate Tribunal at Bangalore, according to Karnataka IT secretary M.N. Vidyashankar.

Currently the CAT is located in Delhi, but efforts are on to have a Bangalore bench to decide appeal cases, he told reporters.

Mr. Vidyashankar was providing details of the two-day Bangalore Cyber Security Summit 2011 to be held on March 17 and 18.

“The proposal is under advanced consideration”, he said.

Speaking on the occasion, N.A. Vijayshankar, Director Cyber Law College hoped the Bangalore bench would later be expanded to become a southern bench for all appeal cases in the region.

The Cyber Appellate Tribunal was set up as per the Information Technology Act.

The Tribunal has powers to regulate its own procedure including the place at which it will have sittings.

IT secretaries of each State function as adjudicating officers and conduct enquiries within their jurisdiction on cyber crime related matters.

If any party was dissatisfied with the outcome, they could approach CAT and subsequently if still not happy, approach the High Court and later Supreme Court.

Mr. Vidyashankar said there were also plans to set up a Cyber Lab at Mangalore, which would become operational in a month.

The lab which will be set up with the help of Keonics, would be engaged in education and spreading awareness about cyber crimes.

The lab which would largely run on an automated system would help individuals, organisations, NGOS and anyone seeking information on cyber crimes including prevention and legal remedies on the issue, said Mr. Vidyashankar.

It would also host a multi-media presentation and would also ensure providing answer to queries if required.

There were plans to subsequently launch three such labs, including, one in North Karnataka, he said.

On cyber crime, he said though the statistics appeared low, they were misleading because many a times people failed to report owing to lack of awareness. Even those duped in lottery scams could approach the IT secretary for a legal remedy as anyone sending e-mail under fake names could be booked.

Giving details on the second edition of the summit, he said it was aimed at helping people on ways to defend and protect themselves.

“Many of the cyber criminals are thorough professionals with funding”, he said.