NEW DELHI: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging top cops to bank more on ‘data’ over 'danda'(stick) the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has constituted a high powered panel under Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) to develop a separate indigenous ‘cloud server’ for storage of digital crime and criminal records including all records of courts, FIRs, charge sheets and fingerprints.
This initiative aligns with the impending implementation of three Acts: Bhartiya Nyaya Samhita, Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Samhita, and Bhartiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, set to replace The Indian Penal Code, The Criminal Procedure Code, and The Evidence Act.
Sources confirm that the panel will be headed by the Director General of BPR&D, will include members from the MHA, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, National Informatics Centre (NIC), and the cyber security agency "Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN)."
Sources mentioned that once the cloud server is made available, a mechanism will be devised to enable sharing and retrieval of stored data by concerned police stations and e-courts, facilitating expeditious trials in the courts.
The panel under the DG BPR&D will also work out a policy framework for accessing data by both State and Central agencies for executing the new criminal laws, they said, adding that all the information available will always remain under a secured and protected environment.
To uphold the security of the cloud storage, sources indicated that a dynamic password system would be implemented. Authorized users from law enforcement agencies and courts nationwide would receive "one-time passwords" for accessing the cloud storage.
Once implemented, the new criminal justice system would be the biggest in the world, as all digitised records of the courts, FIRs, charge sheets, and evidence will be kept in one server.
The criminal justice system under new codes provides the generation and supply of records in electronic, as videographic/ forensic evidence have been made mandatory in cases involving punishment of seven years or more. Thus, a system having huge and robust cloud storage is required to fulfill the need for speedy justice in the country, the sources said. Once implemented, the new criminal justice system would be the biggest in the world, as all digitised records of the courts, FIRs, charge sheets, and evidence will be kept in one server.
It is to be noted here that during a recently held 58th DGP/IGP conference here PM Modi had exhorted the police officers to work with the spirit of ‘Citizen First, Dignity First and Justice First’ and directed them to bank more on data than ‘danda’.