Centre for Information Communication and Technology Law: A new beginning

Atharva Khubhalkar

The Centre for Information Communication Technology Law (CICTL) was started by Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai with the aim to be a centre for excellence in generating and disseminating the knowledge concerning the interrelationship between technology and law across the globe.

The Centre pursues the following objectives:

• To explore the opportunities and challenges in the information society and provide legal and policy solutions

• To serve as a platform to bring together experts, leaders and researchers from the technical and legal domain

• To undertake, promote and disseminate core law and policy research in the techno-legal field

• To work in collaboration with national and international research centres, global academia, international, governmental and non-governmental organizations and the tech industry

• To offer consultancy services to a variety of sectors including the legal professionals, private industry, non-profit and public agencies in the techno-legal field

The Centre has engaged in undertaking numerous activities and events encouraging more and more students to become familiar and obtain knowledge of the budding field. The Centre, with the view of increasing accessibility, prepared a compilation of the Ministries and Departments of the government dealing with various aspects of Information Communication Technology along with their corresponding URLs. In a similar fashion, the Centre prepared an exhaustive list of all the laws and regulations dealing with various aspects of Information Communication Technology.

Further, in May 2019, CICTL launched the first edition of its newsletter based on the theme, “Election Campaign, Technology and Law” which deliberated on the Legislations, Rules, Handbooks, Judicial Decisions, News (National and International), Reports and Journal Articles related to the theme.

Apart from Academic strives, the Centre has also conducted events to ensure the connection with the practicalities of the trade. In the months of June and July 2019, the Centre offered a one-month internship opportunity to undergraduate students. The Centre also offered a certificate programme for young professionals on Cyber Law. In the month of October 2019, CICTL conducted a “One Day Training Program on Electronic Evidence” under the Aegis of Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor Prof. (Dr) Dilip Ukey and Registrar Judge Mr. Vivek Gavhane.

The Centre has engaged with eminent lawyers, jurists and academics to organise academic seminars and webinars in order to disseminate knowledge regarding trends in Information, Communication and Technology Laws. A guest lecture on ‘Regulating Cyberspace’ was organised by the CICTL wherein eminent Cyber Lawer Adv. Prashant Mali was called to deliver a lecture. Other speakers Dr Rakesh Goyal, Mr. Balsingh Rajput, Mr. Vaibhav Sakhare and Dr. Anand N. Raut (Deputy Director, CICTL) were part of one day workshop on electronic evidence distinguished legal luminaries including. The Centre had also organised a webinar on “Apposite methods of Dispute Resolution Post-COVID 19: A Judge’s Perspective”. The webinar was organised by Ret. Judge Kristi Harrington Certified Mediator and Arbitrator South Carolina Supreme Court.

Recently, in the month of January 2020, the Centre coordinated an International Symposium on the theme of ‘Challenges on regulating online platform: Fragile balance between freedom of expression and abuse” which focussed on the jurisdictions of France, Germany and India. This event was organised in collaboration with the Universitat of Potsdam, Paris University, and German Franco University.

Apart from this, CICTL has ensured that Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai possesses state-of-the-art infrastructure for the benefit of the legal academia. It has engaged in resource planning for the University which has resulted in the setting of the Computer lab, RFID enabled Libraries, Digitized Classrooms and Online internships.

In the future course of months, after the constitution of the new panel of student members, the Centre plans to continue its strides in the field of Information, Communication and Technology Laws. The Centre currently runs a functional blog and journal for the dissemination of legal scholarship. With this note, we invite the legal fraternity to support and associate with us, the Centre for Information, Communication and Technology laws and help us in fulfilling our objectives.