I personally know Pavan and he continues to be my good friend and a respected professional despite my disagreement with the ASSOCHAM issue. I also know Praveen Dalal as a young bright lawyer with lots of energy. I am proud that he started his writing on Cyber Laws first on Naavi.org and I wish him all the best to emulate Pavan in future.

When me, Pavan Duggal and Rohas Nagpal of Pune started working on Cyber Laws in India in different capacities way back in 1998-2000 period, there were not many in India who could even discuss the basics of Cyber Laws in India.

It is a show of progress today that there are many others who can comment on the amendments and even advise the Government.

For the information of all I have received the confirmation that the ITAmendment Bill 2008 has received the consent of the President on 5th February 2009.

Naavi

It is nice to know that ASSOCHAM endorsed the views of Praveen Dalal. I thought Mr Pavan Duggal who is better known in the Cyber Law field was the advisor to ASSOCHAM and if ASSOCHAM takes any views it is the considered views of Pavan Duggal and not that of any body else.

As far as my reading goes, Pavan Duggal is a tall personality in Indian Cyber Law and Praveen Dalal is a person who entered the field much later. Pavan Duggal is known to have provided consultation to the Indian Government and also some foreign Governments on Cyber Law. He is also in the forefront as to litigation on Cyber Crimes and has many clients who are associated with ASSOCHAM. It is unlikely that ASSOCHAM would depend on anybody other than Pavan Duggal for farming their views. I hope you are not confusing Pavan Duggal with Praveen Dalal.

If somebody has opposed 2005 version it is not necessary that he should also oppose the 2008 version since both are diametrically opposite in its effect. In fact what surprises me is that somebody who studied the 2005 version..say Praveen Dalal(Which you have called the fraud version) should not appreciate that 2008 version is better. If he thinks this is also weak, also criminal friendly, bad enough to be withdrawn, then it means that he has not identified the differences between the two versions.

I know that Mr Praveen Dalal has many followers who always quickly post supplementary comments without ever forgetting that he is the leading Techno Legal consultant, Government of India is waiting for his recommendations, Government of India has endorsed his recommendations, Without him India would not have developed etc. These are part of my study on the net on Indian Cyber Law developments.

I presume that you also know him so well and hence feel compelled to reiterate that he is bigger than Pavan Duggal. Somehow I find it difficult to accept this.

Please let me know what is the constitutional provisions got to do with this discussion. Please also let me have links to any of the articles of Praveen Dalal on the amendments which clearly explain why he thinks this is a weak law, deserves to be withdrawn etc. I only find statements of him on the net without much of substantiation.

May be you have done greater research.

Now one point that u have raised is section wise analysis of the bill. i absolutely agrre with that and give credit to naavi for doing that. may be a section wise interpretation by others is in the pipeline, may be they must have given it to the government directly, may be opinion of experts like mr dalal would be taken by the govt before finally coming out with the bill, may be mr naavi’s suggestions must be accepted by the govt? i do not know the truth. finally it is not a matter belonging to mr naavi, mr dalal or assocham alone but to all of us. they r simply the voice of public, whether distorted or correct,but they are not the caretakers of cyber law in India. so do not confuse my wordings as a loyality or semantic for any body. i have my own viewpoint and i am expressing the same.

But similar point by point justification of why the amendments are bad enough to be withdrawn at this stage is not forthcoming from either ASSOCHAM or Praveen. If somebidy gives the links to such reasoned arguments, it would help students like us to understand why the so called experts should have such diametrically opposite views

Firstly the bill is not criminal friendly but having the tendencies to implicate innocents and a platform providing abusive powers. Assocham must be saying it a criminal friendly law because some sections dealing with offences have been diluted.in any case assocham’s stand is purely commercial with no intent to serve the interest of indians. unlike the efforts of techno-legal experts like mr praveen dalal and u i see no institution or person doing good to india. unfortunately u 2 are on different sides of the table but that is what life is all about.

Secondly, a law that is missing some aspects it is supposed to cover is a better law than a badly drafted law. in the latter case u make a law that takes away the life liberty privacy etc of the citizens. that makes the law a really weak piece of law subject to both public criticism as well as constitutional attack, like mr dalal says.

Thirdly, if judiciary is keeping a mum right now there is no gurantee that it would provide reliefs to the citizens for illegal snooping and violations of their rights. citizes have to act now before their fate is sealed forever.

Finally, a law that is not just reasonable and strong is nothing but a weak and ineffective piece of law.

These are my views that may differ from u or others but i cannot help it.

If ASSOCHAM or anybody else had stated that the Bill needs to be withdrawn because it is amenable for abuse I would have no reason to raise any objection. If ASSOCHAM states that it is too stringent on E-Business or ISPs or Portals and hence it is not acceptable, then also I have no issue. But why say that it is weak and criminal friendly?

It is possible to think that the law is inadequate.I also agree that more saeguards should be built to prevent abuse. Definitely there was scope for improvement.

However, we need to look at the relative position. After 8 years we decided to amend the act. We need to consider whether it is now better than the previous version? or More importantly, is it better than the 2005 or 2006 proposed amendments?.

I think that it is an improvement particularly from the proposed amendments of 2005/2006 from the point of view of better focus on security.

If security is not the yardstick but say “Promotion of E-Commerce” is the yardstick, then one can have a different view. I am perfectly with it.

But to say that the law is “Criminal Friendly” does not appear to be justified. To use this as an excuse to stop the amendment would be a retrograde step. If it is done, then we are reverting to the 8 year old version and most probably the amendments as proposed in 2005/2006 would be pushed in the next attempt. This is what I sense is happenning in Delhi. May be it is “lobbying” and not “Conspiracy”. I have only used the word for force and readers can substitute it with lobbying if they prefer.