In Shraddha Walkar murder, Bombay HC blames ‘access to material on internet’

Bombay High Court Chief Justice Dipankar Datta on Saturday flagged rising cybercrimes across the country.

Invoking the murder of Mumbai woman Shraddha Walker by her live-in partner, who chopped her body into 35 pieces and dumped them in the forests of Delhi’s Chhatarpur, Justice Datta said the case represents of the flipside of the access to internet in this day and age.

Addressing a seminar, ‘Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in Telecom, Broadcasting, IT and Cyber Sectors’, organised by Telecom Dispute Statement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) in Pune on Saturday, Justice Datta said.

“You have just read in the newspapers about certain stories about love in Mumbai, and horror in Delhi (Shraddha Walkar case), all these crimes are being committed because there is so much access to the material on the internet. Now I am sure that the Government of India is thinking in the right direction.

The Indian Telecommunication bill is there and we require certain robust legislation to tackle all the situations if indeed we are to achieve our goal of keeping our preamble promise of securing justice for all our citizens’ fraternity to retain the dignity of every individual.”

“New instruments are being invented in the new age. In 1989, we did not have any mobile phones. Two or three years later, we came to possess pagers. Then we had those big Motorola mobile handsets and now they have condensed into small phones that are equipped with everything that one can imagine. However, they could also be hacked by anybody, making it an attack on our privacy.”

Stressing the need to have regional benches in line with the National Green Tribunal Act, for hearing such cases, Justice Datta said, “We should explore whether instead of having one principal bench (TDSAT) in Delhi, with sittings permitted at six other places, we should have regional benches in line with the National Green Tribunal Act. The NGT has five benches all over India”.

“These are high goals set by our founding fathers. They had very carefully prepared our Constitution – the supreme law of the country. Let us not fail the Constitution,” he added.