Arthashastra first source of India's forensic science: ex-SC judge claims

Ahmedabad: Kautilya's Arthashastra in India is the early known source of forensic science, former Supreme Court judge Arun Kumar Mishra said on Thursday. He claimed that the forensic method of fingerprint identification had been mentioned in the book, written about 2,300 years ago, and the method is infallible, The Indian Express reported.

According to him, the book mentions that handprints, known as 'Tarija', are not an imitable form of signature.

Further, he opined that "freedom of expression" enjoyed by social media must be curtailed. He called for stringent punishment for unlawful usage of the internet and cyber crimes.

Addressing the 5th All India Forensic Science Conference here, he said that freedom of expression as is given to an individual or media, such as print or television, is the same as is given to social media or cyberspace.

The chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, Mishra, explained that the crime-committing methods had changed and technology is the weapon of the day. Over the past decade, internet users increased exponentially as did the infringement of civil and human rights through cyberspace. Therefore, cybersecurity is inevitable, he said.

He suggested that it is necessary to promote cyber-ethics and that there should be strict rules to penalize unlawful internet behaviour as well as cybercrimes. He called for more computerized forensic labs, centres of excellence in information technology, security education and training for officers, lawyers, and judges.