Jamshedpur, Oct. 19: The Centre has decided to provide short-term training-cum-orientation programmes in a bid to educate judicial officers on information technology (IT) in view of the rise in cyber crime in the country.

According to Supreme Court advocate Pavan Duggal, who is also a visiting faculty member at the National Academy of Judicial Sciences (NAJS) at Bhopal, the government has decided to train judicial officers from November 16.

Duggal, who was in the city for a seminar on cyber laws, said over the phone today that the training programme will be organised for a batch of 50 judicial officers in the rank of district judge and above from all over the country at NAJS.

?This is the first such initiative of the union government wherein judicial officers will undergo the training for a two-week period. The officers would be trained on cyber forensics and electronic contracts, apart from a host of other things,? he said.

The apex court advocate said, ?The training programme will lay emphasis on making the judicial officers familiar with recent advances in the field of IT. The officers would also be given a detailed idea of ways in which it is used by people to cause harassment or financial loss.? Duggal said that even after the formulation of the Information Technology Act 2000, a large section of judicial officers and executives are unaware of both the technology and the law under which the case is to be heard.

?It happens often that the judicial officer hearing a cyber crime case fixes the date of hearing after a long gap, which sometimes extends up to six months, because he is not familiar with the law and technology involved,? said Duggal.

The advocate added that although four years have passed since the date of enforcement of the act, only one person has been convicted. ?The person was convicted for committing a cyber crime in February, 2003. Apart from this no one has been convicted in the history of cyber crime in the country,? Duggal said.

The lack of proper knowledge in the executive and judiciary is also one of the reasons for a large number of cyber crimes not being reported at all. ?This is also justified by a survey conducted by a law firm, which showed that out of every 500 cyber crimes, only 50 are reported and ony one gets registered,? said Duggal.

Duggal, who is also the president of Cyberlaw Asia, said the training programme would help speed up cyber crime trials, increase conviction rate and encourage victims to come forward and report their cases.