CYBER CRIME: Catch-16

The crime involves a legal minor. A 16-year- old male student of Bal Bharti

Air Force School, Delhi, put up a site at www.amazing-gents.8m.net. The site

provided lewd details about the physical attributes and sexual preferences of a

long list of girls and teachers at the school. No doubt this was serious issue:

the "child pornography" itself, compounded by the reputation and

dignity of fellow school mates and teachers. His motivation: revenge, for

consistent humiliation and insults, because of a dermatological problem. The

student was rusticated, and remanded to a juvenile home.

The schoolboy’s arrest attracted much attention, because it was the first

case to be registered in the country under Section 67 of the IT Act. But beyond

the event itself, it is also an issue that needs to be addressed from a larger

social perspective.

Emphasizing this aspect of the incident, Mala Bhargava, executive editor of

Computers@Home, asks, "Are we geared up to help our children experience

this transition into adulthood? Have we spoken to them about the facts

explaining them that such conduct is accepted under an environment of love but

unacceptable when the intent is to harm others? It is time for us to accept sex

as a part of life and take it up as a natural topic with children. It is time to

have an ‘Internet talk’ with our children: open, friendly and

educative."

Anonymity of the Net presents an opportunity where suppressed wishes can be

made manifest. Most users when joining a chat room don assumed names and switch

identities. While it may be a great way to release suppressed desires, it also

raises a more ethical question, "How much is enough?"

The website in question is apparently very amateurish, mostly text-based and

almost no graphics. But the content was so vulgar that had the Crime Branch used

excerpts of it in its FIR it would been hauled up for being lewd, says the

newspaper report. Section 67 of the IT Act prevents the publication of any

matter in electronic format which is lascivious or prurient in interest or which

aims to deprave and corrupt the minds who are likely to see, hear or read the

same. The lewd details about girls and teachers on the website had the potential

to incite negative thoughts in readers.

As minor, the police has currently sent the boy to the juvenile home in

Timarpur. He has been charged in the FIR under three Acts: Section 67 of the IT

Act, under 4/6 article of the indecent representation of the women’s Act and

292/509 IPC. After through investigations, the police expects to file the charge

sheet within a month’s time. Under the current charges, the boy could face

imprisonment up to five years in jail or fine up to Rs 1 lakh.

As the first incident of its kind, this will be the testing ground for the

police in several aspects. Is the crime branch technology-savvy enough to be

able to present the case in the court of law? For instance what are the things

that have been seized by the police? The Act itself does not provide any

guidelines on the seizure of evidence in a pornographic case.

Balaka Baruah Aggarwal in New Delhi