Electronic discovery or e-discovery in India is a
field that is still not pursued by many law firms in India. There are
only handfuls of law firms that can provide e-discovery
services in India. Further, there only one or two cyber
law firms in India that have been providing legal services
in this field.
The main reason for absence of lawyers and law firms
in the field of e-discovery is lack of techno legal expertise in this
regard. Perry4Law
is the exclusive techno legal e-discovery and cyber forensics law
firm of Asia that has been providing e-discovery and cyber forensics
services to both national and international clients. Perry4Law is
also managing exclusive techno legal e-discovery
blogs in India and providing exclusive techno
legal e-discovery legal services in India and foreign
jurisdictions.
The scope of legal
e-discovery services in India has increased tremendously
in the past few years. In fact, e-discovery
and cyber law due diligence has become mandatory for
required for Indian companies and Indian companies cannot
ignore them anymore. For instance, the cyber security
breaches in India would raise crucial cyber
law and cyber
security issues in the near future and they cannot be
simply ignored as cyber incidences anymore. This is so because many
techno legal obligations have been attached with such cyber
incidences in India.
Take the example of Target Corporation that faced
cyber attacks and data breach recently. For reasons best known to
Target, it failed
to take remedial action in this regard. Now target is
facing litigation
threats around the world and it may be prosecuted in India
as well very soon for failing to comply with techno legal
requirements of applicable Indian laws.
The cyber
forensics trends and developments in India 2013 by
Perry4Law and Perry4Law’s
Techno Legal Base (PTLB) have proved that India has failed
on the fronts of e-discovery and cyber forensics. The law enforcement
and revenue authorities of India have not taken aid of e-discovery
and cyber forensics in their investigations so far.
For instance, Enforcement Directorate (ED) of India
could
have used e-discovery and cyber forensics methods to
detect possible legal violations by Bitcoin websites. The Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has already committed the cyber
forensics blunder in Aarushi’s murder case trial. The
IPL
match fixing case may also be jeoparadised due to lack of
use of cyber forensics best practices. The forensics
analysis of Nokia’s computer used to download software
in India has still not been done till date. The HDFC bank was also
required to follow sound e-discovery and cyber forensics
procedure to avoid legal liability. Unfortunately, none of these
events have actually taken place in India as e-discovery and cyber
forensics have been neglected in all these cases.
All these negative developments clearly indicate
that e-discovery
and cyber
forensics best practices are required to be adopted by
various national and international companies operating in India.
However, in the absence of various techno legal compliance on the
part of Indian and foreign companies operating in India, there is an
urgent need to formulate effective and robust techno legal
e-discovery and cyber forensics regulatory regimes for India. There
is also no doubt that India needs
to strengthen cyber forensics and cyber crimes
investigation capabilities that are in bad shape as on date.
