Amidst a gnarly Covid-19 pandemic, we have immensely resorted to social media and internet usage to maintain social connections which makes us even more vulnerable to cyber bullying, cyber harassment or even a victim of cyber frauds.
Disputandum is a forum created by a group of esteemed lawyers Mr Jitender Goel, Sartej Singh Narula, Shvetanshu Goel, Aditya Dassaur, Rahul Aggarwal, Anirudh Nanda Mannat Anand and our notable alumni of AIL Mr. Shrey Goel and Ms. Shreya Vashistha of Punjab and Haryana High Court who provide a platform for lawyers like them to discuss, deliberate and debate over provocative topics of prime public interest.
A panel discussion on cybercrime was organised on 27 and 28 June 2020 where the panellists comprised of outstanding legal luminaries, members of the film industry and the social media fraternity. The first discussion on ‘Cyber Bullying and Identity Theft’ had a panel presided over by Mr Navdeep Singh Virk, ADGP (Law & Order) Haryana, Mr Tanveer Ahmed Mir, an Advocate, Prof Shruti Bedi, a Law Professor at UILS, Panjab University and, Ms Dolly Singh, a Content Creator, moderated by Mr Manu Chaturvedi, an Advocate. Over a hundred participants took part in the informative session and who enlightened themselves on the laws relating to identity theft and cyber bullying in India.
The discussion focused on the concept of cyberbullying, the non-existence of a proper legislative framework to govern and a lack of a procedural machinery to enforce against its wrongdoers. It was collaborated by the experience sharing by Ms Dolly Singh who is exposed to cyberbullying on an everyday basis. Mr Singh highlighted the existence of a robust mechanism comprising of seven agencies to deal with such crimes and further the discussion voiced the need of a law to effectively handle all forms of cybercrime. The second panel discussion between Mr Rajinder Singh, ex DGP, Punjab, Mr Pavan Duggal, an Advocate who is a Cyber Law Expert, Ms Zareen Khan, an Actress and Dr Navjeet Sidhu Kundal, an Assistant Professor of Law, was moderated by Mr Tariq Khan, an Advocate on the topic ‘CYBER TROLLING AND PROHIBITED CONTENT’.
It was a comprehensive discussion which aimed to provide inputs to draft a proper policy framework with a study of different issues in cybercrime such as cyber trolling, cyber harassment, and cyber stalking, and pointed out various loopholes in the existing legislative framework under the Information Technology Act, 2000, (“the IT Act”) and, discussed solutions to report cybercrime and to seek an adequate remedy. The panel discussions emphasised on the need of sensitisation in the public, the involvement of the educational institutions and a requirement to make both the policy and the machinery, people friendly. Both the events were streamed live on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
This event received endorsement by Mr Aparshakti Khurana, Niranjan Iyengar, Inder Sahani and our esteemed AIL alumni Ms. Nimrit Kaur Ahluwalia, who shared a powerful message against cybercrime and extended their best wishes to support Team Disputandum in their effort.
The Blue Pencil, on behalf of the students of Army Institute of Law congratulates them on this achievement and wishes them all the best for their future endeavors!
This post was written by Aradhya Jain, IIIrd year.
