The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi who was enjoying a holiday in US while the city was burning has now come back to India. Many hope that there will be some accountability for what happens in Delhi now. People have criticized the insensitivity of various political persons including the Prime Minister who did not consider it necessary to speak on the incident until the media started commenting on the irrelevance of the PM’s role in Governance.
As a person observing the Cyber Law scenario in India since its birth, it appears that what we are seeing in Delhi administration is also what we are seeing in the administration of Cyber Law related policy issues for which the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is accountable. This ministry is headed by Mr Kapil Sibal with Mr Milind Deora as his deputy. Nearly for the last one and half years the undersigned has been constantly reminding the ministry that the post of the “Chair Person” of Cyber Appellate Tribunal (CAT) is lying vacant and without the appointment the Cyber Judicial system in the country is absent. The matter has been brought to the attention of the Chief Justice of India, President of India, the UPA Chair person as well as Mr Rahul Gandhi through various means.
But for reasons known to the department, no action has been taken in posting a chairman for the CAT.
What is revealing is that during this time, one retired High Court Judge of Madras High Court, Shri S.K.Krishan was appointed as the Judicial member at CAT and was otherwise eligible to be designated as the Chair person. Despite requests he was not designated and he worked from December 2011 to November 2012 without being able to hold any hearings and attained super annuation.
The Government in the meantime appointed a Head of Department of CAT and another person as the Technical Member of CAT. However, on the appointment of the Chair person there has been no information.
The only apparent reason is that appointment of the Chairperson is not to the liking of some vested interests or there is no consensus from the committee responsible for selection on the candidate selected for the post.
I wish some body in Delhi make an RTI application to find out why the Ministry is unable to appoint a person to the post of the Chair person of CAT.
I call upon the authorities such as the Ministers in charge to come up with a public statement in this regard. I wish the national media takes up this issue which is extremely important for the victims of Cyber Crime suffering without a judicial remedy from June 2011 and wake up the Government from it’s slumber.
Naavi
