1.

Scindia, a nation worth a population of more than a billion people lies in th

e southern region of Asia.
The country has a rich history and has seen a huge upsurge in development in the
recent times.
The development spans across multiple sectors.
One such sector is Information Technology which has picked up pace due to multip
le initiatives taken by the Central Government in the recent years.
The country has a varied demography spread across urban and rural living conditi
ons, sometimes even in the extremes.
Thus, Information Technology has spread its reach in a non-uniform manner, altho
ugh with the recent steps taken by the Government, the people of the nation have
begun to accept it into their lives, replacing their orthodox methods which the
y had been habitual of.
Owing to the growing inculcation of Information Technology across the country, m
ultiple institutes have come up to impart the knowledge of this relatively new b
ranch of study.
However, a few of the universities in the country had been the pioneers of in th
e field of IT in the country, boasting of recognition on a global level.
2. Raghvan Dutta and Karan Bansal are two Scindian nationals who recently obtain
ed their bachelor s degree in Cyber Law and Information Security from the renowned S
cindian Institute of Information Technology (SIIT).
Both the boys were exceptionally bright and were considered a prodigy, particula
rly when it came to finding loopholes in cyber security.
They had had an eventful time in their college, their journey blotted only by a
stray incident of disciplinary sanction when their attempt at breaking into the
University s Cyber Network was dealt with strictly.
The duo, however, passed with flying colours and found themselves eligible for t
he highly appreciated Scindian Institute of Cyber Security (SICS) for their post
graduate program, which they applied for, and were selected upon clearing the r
equired interview.
3. Scindia has entered into an international treaty under which each participati
ng nation is required to submit a review of cyber security practices adopted in
its integral national functions and any upgrades that a nation may have made in
its cyber security mechanisms to bring it at par with the suggested internationa
l standards.
The Convention aims to improve the international scenario of cyber security meas
ures adopted by all of its participant nations.
This year, the responsibility of preparing the draft of the review had been awar
ded to the SICS, the institute being of national repute and importance and havin
g the requisite command over the subject matter.
The institute worked in close correspondence with certain designated officials o
f the Government, to facilitate the preparation of the said draft and to provide
to SICS, the information it might require.
4. The Scindian Space Research Organisation (SSRO) is the space agency of the Go
vernment of Republic of Scindia headquartered in Periyana, a state in the southe
rn part of the country, with a vision to "harness space technology for national
development", while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration.
In March 2016, the SSRO, in the wake of the recent events of cyber-attacks on mu
ltiple websites of national importance, had decided to take extensive measures t
o secure its online presence.
Thus, after a substantial upgrade of its existing cyber security mechanism, it r
eleased a public notification announcing a reward of 1,00,000 in its national cu
rrency to anybody who could find vulnerabilities in their security mechanism.
Those interested were required to fill an online form hosted on a third-party we
bsite and subsequently pay an online fee of 500 in the national currency after w
hich they were to be allotted a Unique Participant Code (UPC) by way of which th
ey would be identified and be able to claim the prize, as the case may be.
Thousands of people reportedly applied for the competition but were unable to ci
rcumvent the Organisation s security measures put into place.
The contest was subsequently announced closed on August 31st, 2016.
5. Raghvan along with Karan, during their initial year at the SICS, had applied
for the competition in the month of June, 2016 to try and find a loophole in SSR
O s security.
Although the upgraded system proved to be too foolproof for them and they could
not succeed in their attempt.
However, they had continued to modify their method of attacks and were expectant
of a positive result on their end.
On the second Sunday of October 2016, the duo decided to give their old endeavou
r another shot and tried a multi-vector attack on the servers of SSRO.
One of their multiple modus operandi in this attack was to introduce a self-prog
rammed virus through an e-mail which, when accessed, was programmed to make its
way into the servers of SSRO and facilitate the success of the multi-vector atta
ck, launched from the outside by the two.
6. This method of attack became successful and the duo gained access to SSRO s serve
rs on the said date.
However, once the breach was successful, the virus began to behave in a manner n
ot foreseen by the perpetrators of the attack.
It affected multiple websites hosted by the SSRO and began to make innumerable c
opies of the extremely confidential data that had been housed inside the servers
.
Raghvan and Karan, monitoring this breach from their end, noticed this unprecede
nted behavior of the virus and were alarmed.
Their test runs with the virus had only showed them that the virus was capable o
f facilitating multi-vector attacks and taking down the websites hosted on the i
nfected server.
7. Faced with an unforeseen behavior of their program which they now knew would
land them in the midst of extremely dire circumstances, they sent out an anonymo
us mail, addressed to the SSRO, containing the coding of the virus and every oth
er detail they thought would be helpful in terminating the attack.
However, because the servers at SSRO had been clogged, this message did not get
through until it was too late.
Multiple websites hosted on the servers had stopped showing up and the SSRO serv
ers had become jammed.
Following this, emergency response to the attack was triggered and the servers a
t SSRO shut down to prevent further damage.
8. Following the reboot of the servers and the restoration of order, the mail wh
ich had been sent anonymously by the two was received and tracked by way of the
IP address, which directed the Authorities to Raghvan Dutta and Karan Bansal, bo
th of whom were subsequently arrested and charged under Sections 66, 66F of the
Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 and Section 441 of the Scindian Pen
al Code.
The Ld. Sessions Court, upon perusing the facts and the evidence on record, conc
luded that there was a clear lack of intention on the part of the Accused and th
us, they were acquitted under all of the charges labeled against them.
9. The State filed an appeal against the Ld. Sessions Court s verdict in the High Co
urt of Periyana.
The High Court, in its judgement stated that the mere access by the two of them
was an access without authorization and that the breach of confidentiality of th
e files was deemed sufficient to find the two guilty under the charged sections.
The judgement of the Sessions Court was thus reversed and Raghvan Dutta and Kara
n Bansal were found guilty under Sections 66, 66F of the Information Technology
(Amendment) Act, 2008 and Section 441 of the Scindian Penal Code.
They have now approached the Supreme Court of Scindia.
10. Voice of Netizens is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) registered under
the relevant Act of the country.
The Organisation has an eventful history, and has often been in the news for sta
nding up to the Government for the basic rights of the people while on the Inter
net.
The NGO believes that any arbitrary law restricting free speech on the internet
is a bane, often leaving the affected people in a position from where they are u
nable to raise a voice against the oppressive laws.
11. The Organisation observed that a number of detentions across various states
of the country had been made using Section 66F of the Information Technology (Am
endment) Act, 2008, for offences ranging from serious acts such as compromising
the security of the State to acts of defamation or contempt of court, comparativ
ely less in their seriousness.
The blanket usage of this provision, across offences so vastly varied in their s
everity, was viewed as a glaring transgression of the rights of the people in th
e latter cases.
Perturbed over the growing number of such incidents, Voice of Netizens decided t
o file a Public Interest Litigation before the Supreme Court of Scindia challeng
ing the constitutional validity of the said provision.
12. The petition was admitted before the Apex Court and was clubbed with the mat
ter of Mr. Dutta and Mr. Bansal, the Court believing that it was imperative to d
ecide the constitutionality of Section 66F of the IT Act in order to administer
justice to the matter concerning the SSRO.
The matter is therefore pending before the Hon ble Supreme Court of Scindia.
13. All the relevant laws of Scindia are pari materia to those of India.