The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on safeguards that should be applied for use of social media by the Union Ministries, government departments and officers.
The Court asked why special agreements could not be signed with social media companies for compliance with Indian laws and for safeguarding the country’s interests.
Hearing a public interest writ petition moved by former Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue K.N. Govindacharya, a Division Bench has asked the Union Government to file within four weeks its response to the petitioner’s affidavit in which information was provided about the use of social media networks by the government departments.
Petitioner’s counsel Virag Gupta said the way the Union Government was using social media networks like Facebook and Twitter was illegal as it had surrendered intellectual property rights on official data and allowed commercial usage of the data, as well as its transfer from India to the U.S.
Additional-Solicitor General Sanjay Jain informed the Bench comprising Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Siddharth Mridul that an advisory on usage of e-mails had been issued and guidelines for usage of IT resources on government networks had been finalised. The latter will be shortly placed before the Union Cabinet for its approval.
Mr. Jain also informed the Court that service tax on Internet advertising was being collected as per the Finance Act with effect from October 1.
Besides this, a proposed tender issued by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development for appointment of a social media consultant, to which the petitioner had raised objection, has been withdrawn.
The Court posted the matter for further hearing on January 30.
