Cyber Crime Justice Challenges in Bangladesh
Dr. Md. Mahbub Hasan : The Interim Government has taken many steps to reform the judicial system, and it is public expectation and demand that they should reform the cybercrime justice process and set up a Cyber Appellate Tribunal as early as possible to avoid miscarriage of justice. The Cyber Crime has defined as a criminal activity[1] committed on the internet and Computer[2], and it is a very new nature of technology-based crimes[3] in the World.
This is the new jurisprudence in the legal arena because it has changed the general traditional definition of the crime, whereas a crime only committed face to face physically and harmed on the body, but this type of crime committed remotely and without harming physical damage. The government law enforcement agencies including the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) stated that cyber crime is a growing trend and has become a threat to public safety in Bangladesh[4].Bangladesh is one of the highest risky Countries of a cyber crime threat [5] in the world.
The Criminal Justice system is the agencies and processes established by the government to control crime and impose penalties on those who violated laws[6].There is another new branch has been created in the digital era. It is the cyber crime justice system. Because of the nature of cyber crime committed in cyber space and by the use of digital technology.
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It is not similar to the traditional crime even its evidence process, investigation system and trial process are different, and all of actors in justice process needed special digital technology-based knowledge, facts and law, whereas the traditional criminal justice system needed only knows law and facts. This is also the ‘globalisation’ problem so it is needed a fully global response in order to secure the cyberspace in digital age and it is necessary reactive rather than proactive. Thus, it is needed to develop in transnational policing of ‘cyberspace’ in order to address right way to cyber crime[7].
A cybercrime justice system in Bangladesh was introduced by passing the ICT Act 2006.Sections 68 to 73describe the cybercrime justice system. In this system are involved various organizations such as the police, public prosecutors, judges, judicial magistrates, court officials, and defense lawyers (advocates). Moreover, many agencies or persons are also part of the system to hold it to ensure justice, such as the CID’s Digital Forensic Unit, the Cyber Crime Unit of DMP, the Cyber Crime Unit of RAB, the legal experts, the IT experts, and witnesses. And legal obligation in this justice process should be computer- and internet-based knowledgeable persons.
Challenges in trial process in Cyber Tribunal
The government set up the first Cyber Tribunal in Dhaka in 2013. It had a wide jurisdiction over the country; all parts of the people of Bangladesh came to Dhaka for seeking justice, which cost them heavily in personal cost and valuable time. In order to solve the problem of easy access to the cybercrime justice process, the government set up seven more cyber tribunals for every divisional headquarters in 2021, and the total is now eight tribunals.
According to Police Headquarters reports, huge numbers of cybercrimes have been committed in Bangladesh, and day by day it is increasing, and different regional tribunals are now promptly disposing of trials of cyber cases.
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The Cyber Tribunal is a special type of tribunal, established under S.68 of the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006, to adjudicate cybercrimes under the ICT Act 2006 and the Cyber Security Ordinance 2025 for speedy and effective trials. Every tribunal has over Divisional territorial jurisdiction or jurisdiction of more session divisions. The Tribunal follows Chapter 23 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 for its trial procedure.
It is constituted by a session judge or an additional session judge appointed by the government to be known as the judge of the cyber tribunal. The ICT Act 2006, S. 2 (28), does not clearly define the word “judge,” and it is referred to as a “judge” who is the judge of the cyber tribunal appointed under S. 68. The government has appointed the Tribunal Judge. The S.68 stated that the judge of the ICT tribunal is to be called as “Judge Cyber Tribunal,” and he should be a District Judge or Additional District Judge. Nothing says anything about his special qualification regarding information technology or capability to act as a judge in a cyber tribunal.
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Bangladesh has different types of Tribunals to perform judiciary and quasi-judiciary functions such as the Labour Tribunal and the Administrative Tribunal etc. In the Labour Tribunal has constituted in 3 members, such as one of the judge, one expert of the subject matter and one general member of the stakeholder, but in Cyber Crime Tribunal, where only one judge. The one judge tribunal has wide scoped to take a wrong decision, or easily involved in biasness and committed miscarriage of justice. Moreover, there is no jury trial.
The Public prosecutor has an important role to prosecute the case in Tribunal. The District Magistrate on behalf of the Government generally appoints Public Prosecutor(s) in order to represent criminal cases in any Court under S.492 of the CrPC[8].Though the ICT Act 2006 is quite silent how to be appointed public prosecutor to conduct the case on behalf of the government and appointed on the consider only the government’s party line, most of them are involved in corruption and lacking of technology skills.
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The government appointed a public prosecutor in the Cyber Tribunal, but did not consider any special qualification of any technology based cyber crime training or degree. The ICT Act 2006 and Cyber Security Ordinance 2025have totally silent about the qualifications, experienced of PP in cyber Tribunal.
However, the International Jurist Commission and the various instruments of the UN and various Human Rights protocol International and Regional Protocols are set up those standards of the Fair Trial[9] :
- The Right to Equality before the Law and Courts
- Right to a trial before an Independent, Impartial and Competent Tribunal Established by Law
- A Competent Tribunal Established by Law
- The Role of Prosecutors
- The Independence of the Legal Profession
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In the context of Bangladesh, the standards of some elements still have gaps in the tribunal and have created obstacles to ensure fair justice. In regard to an independent, impartial, and competent tribunal, they are doubtful because the judge of the tribunal appointment, promotion, and transfer are controlled by the government; the lower judiciary is not fully separated from the executive; and many of the cyber cases are directly or indirectly involved with the government’s interest, so there are high chances to act for the government.
Moreover, the judge has no special qualification in cyber crimes and IT, so it could be argued that this tribunal is not competent on standards . The PP is also appointed by the government, and his skills and knowledge are also not up to standard, and his independence and other lawyers’ independence are questionable; thus, this tribunal has failed to qualify the UN’s basic principles on the independence of the judiciary.
It was found that the traditional Evidence Act 1872 has no provisions relating to electronic hearsay evidence testified in the Tribunal and the collection of digital evidence, seizure, forensic process and preservation, and the investigation process by the police, which is fully different in cyber crimes. The two-hundred-year-old Criminal Procedure Code 1898 is used in the tribunal justice process, investigation, and trial, which is not compatible with new technology-based crimes because technology is randomly changing, so cybercrime patterns are also changing.
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It was found that in national stages, some of the countries have developed their national legislations for secure cyberspace and cybercrime justice systems as role models all over the world. These are the data protection and security law, digital evidence law, special criminal procedure and investigation laws, the intellectual property rights in cyberspace, etc. Bangladesh enacted some legislation to protect cyberspace and control cybercrimes, but those are not enough. It has not enacted any legislation relating to data privacy, the Digital Evidence Act, the E-commerce Act, etc.
It was found that the cyber tribunal does not have enough technological and logistic support; it does not even have sufficient computers, projectors, or video/audio facilities to exhibit the digital evidence, so all of the tribunal’s justice process is based on the documents. It has no special protected room to preserve digital evidence that was seized as ‘Alamot of the crime.’ The office facilities are very poor. It also has a shortage of staff and expert cybercrime-trained Passker.
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Many of the tribunals do not have any Nokalkhana, where they keep all of the records and issue certified copies of judgments and other tribunal orders. As a result, they share with the NokolKhanaof the District Judge’s office. As a result, justice seekers face troubles and spend extra money to get a copy of the judgment on time.
Moreover, the judge or public prosecutor (PP) does not have any special qualification in IT, and there is no IT expert or forensic expert in the tribunal to assist them. Law permitted them to call experts to assist, but research revealed that they have not called. There is no jury service, which is an international standard for ensuring fair justice; a single judge takes decisions and has a wide scope to allow miscarriages of justice, corruption, and wrong decisions to occur.
On the top, defense lawyers also have no special education in IT or even cybercrime justice-related training; as a result, they did not correctly represent their clients’ cases and establish. As a result, the Tribunal could not ensure fair justice for all, which is human rights and constitutional rights.
There is no Cyber Appellate Tribunal
The jurisdiction of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal to hear the appeal and settle as per S. 83(1) of the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006 (ICT Act 2006) and S. 41(2) of the Cyber Security Ordinance 2025 (CSO 2025). But the CSO 2025 does not clearly state the appeal process, and in the absence of an appeal tribunal, what should be on file for the appeal? But the ICT has been clearly defined as “the Appeal Tribunal,” which means that “the Cyber Appeal Tribunal” has been formed under S.82 of the ICT Act 2006. The Cyber Appellate Tribunal shall comprise a chairman and two members and shall be appointed by the government as per S. 82(2) of the said Act.
The chairman will be such a person who was a justice of the Supreme Court or is continuing his post or is capable of being appointed as such, and one of the members will be an appointed judicial executive as a district judge, or he may be retired, and the other will be a person having the knowledge and experience in information and technology that is prescribed (Section 82 (3) of the ICT Act 2006). The duration of the post of the chairman and the members of the post is a minimum of 3 years and a maximum of 5 years, and the conditions of their service will be decided by the government (Section 82(4) of the ICT Act 2006).
The power of the Appellate Tribunal to affirm, or set aside, modification or amendment of the judgment of the Cyber Tribunal as per S.83(2) of the ICT Act 2006. The decision of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal isfinal and cannot be appealed to any court of Bangladesh, which means it is the highest court relating to cyber cases.
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This Appellate Tribunal does not have any original jurisdiction, which means no case is allowed to be filed in this Tribunal. The nature of the court is exercised as a civil court in these contexts: (i) Summoning and examining witnesses; (ii) requiring production of documents; (iii) receiving evidence; (iv) issuing commissions; and (v) reviewing its decision.
The ICT Act 2006 under S.84 states that in the absence of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal, all appeal cases against the verdict of the Cyber Tribunal are to be filed in the High Court Division of the Supreme Court, i.e., the High Court Division as the acting Cyber Appellate Tribunal. However, S.82(3) states that one of the members of the Appellate Tribunal should be a person having adequate knowledge and experience in information and communication technology.
Compared to the High Court Division, it is a two-member bench, and both of the members of the bench came from law backgrounds—so far no one came from the IT background, and appeals are heard and disposed of in the conventional regular criminal bench. Therefore, this is a question of how we could ensure justice without knowledge of the IT background to try a technology-based new kind of offense. It is against the spirit of the ICT Act to ensure appeal rights. The Constitution guaranteed fundamental rights to get justice for all and also conflicted with the International Convention of Human Rights to ensure justice for all. Therefore, there is now a demand for time to set up a Cyber Appeal Tribunal to ensure justice and speedily dispose of cybercrime-related appeal cases.
Conclusion
It is concluded that there are a lot of challenges in the cybercrime justice system in Bangladesh. It does not have enough cybercrime-combating policy and legislation to protect against cybercrimes. Moreover, Bangladesh Police does not have enough trained officers to investigate and monitor cybercrimes to cover each and every Thana all over the country. In the justice process, in the first instance, every district does not have at least one judicial magistrate trained to deal with cyber cases, and also the GRO has not been trained to handle cybercrime cases in the judicial magistrate court.
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In the Cyber Tribunal, the judge, public prosecutor, defense lawyers, and court clerk (Passker) have not been trained enough. The judge and PP did not have any special education/knowledge in IT. There is no cyber appellate court, so the High Court Division has not ensured the requirement of special qualification to hear cybercrime appeal cases and has created a wide scope to threaten miscarriage of justice.
The writer is a Barrister and Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh. He specializes in Cyber Law and Comparative Cybercrime Justice System, and can be reached at lawmmh@yahoo.com.
[1] Md. Abu Hanif, Mass Media and Cyber Laws of Bangladesh ( 1st Published , National law Book House 2014),p. 282
[2] Elizabeth A. Martin (Ed), A Dictionary of Law ( Sixth Edition, Oxford University Press , 2006), p.145
[3] Ibid., p. 397
[4]The Dhaka Tribune<https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/crime/2017/09/21/women-biggest-victims-rising-cyber-crimes> access on 6th August, 2025
[5]Sharier Khan, Cyber criminals stole billion dollars last year, The Daily Star ( Dhaka, 12th March 2016 ), p. 1-2
[6] American National Canter for Victim of Crime <https://victimsofcrime.org/help-for-crime-victims/get-help-bulletins-for-crime-victims/the-criminal-justice-system#what> accessed on 18 July 2025
[7]Ibid.p.408
[8] the Act No.32 of 2009
[9] International Commission of Jurists, Trial Observation Manual for Criminal Proceedings- Practitioners Guide No.5 (International Commission of Jurists, Geneva 2009),p.38
