The Supreme Court (SC) pulled up the Centre for not being “serious” in dealing with the increasing number of cyber crimes related to sexual offences against women.
The apex court’s censure came despite the government’s assurance that it would soon set-up a Cyber Crime Coordination Cell (CCCC) to combat the menace.
“In a matter of public interest you should have shown some seriousness. Why have you not brought the officers? Your officers are sitting in Parliament and we are sitting here doing nothing?” said a bench headed by justice MB Lokur, which gave a week’s time to the government to place before it the mechanism it has worked out to deal with crimes on the internet.
The government indicated that CBI may be appointed as a nodal agency to deal with crimes on the web. The court issued the direction while hearing a petition filed by NGO Prajwala, seeking action against those who upload gangrape videos on social media.
The court’s remarks came after government counsel, R Balasubramanyam, sought more time to submit its response on what steps have been taken to tackle the problem. He said the Centre was conscious of the problem and was also contemplating a “national sex offenders list”.