The court was hearing a PIL seeking protection of sensitive data from being transferred through foreign servers. (IE Archive) The court was hearing a PIL seeking protection of sensitive data from being transferred through foreign servers. (IE Archive)

Surprised by a Central government affidavit, indicating the lack of adequate Information Technology infrastructure, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the government to finalise its email usage policy for government servants within two weeks.

The court of Acting Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed and Justice Siddharth Mridul took note of the government submission that only 4.5 lakh of nearly 50 lakh government servants had been provided official email IDs through the National Informatics Center (NIC). It asked the Centre to expedite setting up government-owned servers to handle the huge demand.

The court also noted that there was a requirement to develop an indigenous encryption and protection software to protect sensitive government data. “There are enough brains in India to develop such software,” the court observed.

The government on Wednesday submitted the minutes of a meeting of the Committee of Secretaries, which was held on March 14. The meeting was held to discuss issues related to internet usage policy.

Though the affidavit was submitted in a sealed cover, the surprised bench pulled up the government for the deficiencies in the current systems, directing them to come up with the email usage policy and expand India-based servers for storing government data.

“The earlier this is done, the better it is because your secrets are being stolen. This is an issue of national importance,” the court said.

The observations were made during a hearing on a PIL filed by RSS member K N Govindacharya, seeking action by the government to protect sensitive government data from being transferred through foreign-based websites and servers.

Further, the court said the government had to “recognise the power” of social networking sites and consider banning use of such sites on government computer networks.

Additional Solicitor General Rajeeve Mehra, who had appeared on behalf of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, assured the court that the government would soon issue an advisory to government servants to not use social networking sites from their official computers.

The ASG also said the government would issue an advisory making it mandatory for all government officials, who have been given registered government Email IDs though NIC or .gov.in, to use only the official email addresses for official communication.

In a separate affidavit filed by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the government had said, “As per the proposed policies, e-mail accounts will be given to all the employees of the government and it will be mandatory for them to use this e-mail account for all official communications. The use of e-mail accounts of external service providers will be prohibited for official communication.”

In its affidavit, the department has also stated that the Committee of Secretaries was looking into creating the ‘E-mail Policy of Government of India’ and ‘Policy on Acceptable use of IT Resources of Government of India’.

“There will be an incremental increase in the number of users of official addresses,” ASG Mehra, said.

But the court said it was not satisfied with the time frame given by the government for implementation of the email policy.

“Let the government finalise it policy within two weeks, with a further two weeks for the Committee of Secretaries to consider it. You cannot take 6-8 months,” the court said.

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