Though Late, Use Of External Email Services Banned

Govt staff can’t have external e-mail service for official use, High Court told-Hindu Business Line

NEW DELHI, MARCH 25:  

The Government employees will be given e-mail accounts for “mandatory” use in official communications and use of Internet services of “external service providers” will be prohibited, the Centre has told the Delhi High Court.

Affidavit filed

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology, which has repeatedly been rapped by the High Court for not coming out with the e-mail policy for government officials, has filed an affidavit saying the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) has met recently and undertaken a wider consultation process among stake-holders in the country.

“The e-mail Policy of the Government of India lays down the guidelines with respect to use of e-mail services.

“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. The objective of this policy is to ensure secure access and usage of data by the Government employees,” the affidavit said.

A bench, headed by acting Chief Justice B D Ahmed, is likely to consider the reply of the IT Department tomorrow when it will hear the PIL of former BJP leader K N Govindacharya seeking directions on a host of issues relating to websites.

Consultation process

The affidavit also said the consultation process undertaken by the CoS included “policy issues, ways and means of implementation of policies, enhancement of infrastructure and other related issues.”

“Since both the policies have to be implemented across the country, approval of such policies has to be at the level whose decisions are binding on such matters across the country. The competent authority for consideration of policies which are applicable across the ministries and States is the CoS headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

“Depending upon the sensitivity and importance of the policies and recommendations of CoS, decisions of the CoS are further processed for approval by the Cabinet,” it said. Earlier, the court had come down heavily on the Centre for not framing the e-mail policy for government employees in consonance with the Public Records Act, saying all sensitive official data cannot be transferred to a server outside India