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Lawyers
proceeded under the Information Technology Act, 2000
In
first of its kind case, the Delhi High Court has declined to stay
criminal proceedings or quash the First Information Report ("FIR")
against four lawyers. However, the court has granted bail to the
accused. Titus & Co. (former employer of the accused) has charged
the accused of cheating, criminal breach of trust, theft of electronic
records and hacking into its computer network system.
The
complaint was filed with the Special Cell of the Delhi Police
in August, 2004 and an FIR was registered against the four accused,
all of whom were previously employed by Titus & Co .The complaint
was under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 ("IT
Act") for "hacking of computer network", and the offense committed
by the accused was that they had allegedly taken away vast amounts
of confidential data from the firm's computer network system.
Following the registration of the FIR, the Delhi Police conducted
a raid on the office premises of LexCounsel - the outfit set up
by the four lawyers at residence of one of the lawyers in Delhi
- and allegedly found four hard discs containing confidential
client information.
In
response to the above accusation the four accused filed a petition
in the court for quashing of the case as they claimed that they
had wrongly been charged with the illegal possession of office
electronic records. The accused have contended that at the time
of leaving Titus & Co., they were not employees, but were in fact
``fee-sharing partners''. The court dismissed this petition on
the ground that the records of the firm clearly showed that they
were employees and not partners.
Presently,
the petitioners have been granted bail upon furnishing personal
bonds for Rs.1 lakh each, with one surety for a like amount and
subject to condition that they shall join investigations as and
when required; and that they shall not in any manner tamper with
the prosecution evidence and shall not leave India without the
permission of the trial court.
Though,
this is not one of the first cases under the Section 66 of the
IT Act, it has been the first time that lawyers have been prosecuted
under the same. The new amendment in the IT Act has proposed to
make Section 66 more stringent. This move has been matched by
the active role that the judiciary has taken towards enforcing
intellectual property and protecting confidentiality of persons,
as indicative in recent court decisions, including the recent
one.
Source:
The
Hindu, Delhi edition, October 14, 2005
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