Contempt plea filed in Delhi HC against IT Secretary

Former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya today moved a fresh plea in the Delhi High Court seeking contempt proceedings against the Secretary, Information and Technology Ministry, for "failure to comply with the provision to place grievance officers".
A bench of justices B D Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul has fixed the matter for hearing on May 21.
The application, filed through lawyer Virag Gupta, has also sought a direction to Facebook Inc to "modify the grievance mechanism by making the specific provision for redressal of grievances/complaints to be authenticated through digital signatures."
On April 29, the former BJP leader had moved an application seeking a direction to the Centre to safeguard the interests of Indians who do business through the internet.

The plea had sought a direction for safeguarding the interest of internet users by making it mandatory that users use digital signatures.
The court had asked the Centre to put in place the proposed e-mail policy for government employees which will ensure that they will not use internet services of "external service providers" for official communications.

Govindacharya, in the PIL, has raised various issues including use of e-mail services, provided by offshore providers, by government officials for official purposes.
The websites evade taxes and make public the personal details of Indian users, it alleged, adding even minors below 13 years of age are being allowed to use Facebook due to lack of proper mechanism.

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, it said.
The plea has also sought a direction to ensure safety of the data of 50 million Indian users which is transferred "to the US and is being used for commercial gains in violation of the right to privacy.