The Delhi High Court today came down heavily on the Centre for not framing the e-mail policy for government employees in consonance with the Public Records Act, so that official data is not transferred to a server outside India.
The Central government, which was asked by the court on October 30 last year to frame the policy within four weeks, was at the receiving end during the proceedings today for not been able to do it.
"I do not know what are you (Centre) doing? I think no one is concerned over this issue. We blame politicians, but look at the bureaucrats, what are they doing?
"Even four weeks time was set up for the government to frame the policy, but, till date, no e-mail policy is finalised," Justice B D Ahmed said, adding "we have to only see government's response....".
The bench, also comprising Justice Siddharth Mridul, also directed that a senior official from concerned department be remain present before it to explain the stand of the Union of India on February 24, the next date of hearing.
Besides framing of e-mail policy, the PIL, filed by former BJP leader K N Govindacharya, also seeks various directions including the issuance of necessary notification mandating electronic signatures for authentication of correspondences through e-mails.
The court's observations came when the counsel for Centre showed inability in doing the needful within a fixed time frame.
"How much you want to test our patience?...," it said.
Govindacharya, in the PIL, said, the government officials usually use Gmail accounts, whose servers are outside India, and transfer the official data through them which is violative of the Public Records Act.
The plea, filed through counsel Virag Gupta, has also sought a direction to ensure safety of the data of 50 million Indian users which was transferred "to the US and is being used for commercial gains in violation of the right to privacy."
Earlier, US-based Google Inc, in its reply, said it is not liable to pay any taxes in India for its internet activities, as it is not providing any taxable services or earning income from here nor does it have a permanent establishment in the country.
