Plea against bulk messaging by CMO: Kerala HC reserves order

Kochi: High court has reserved its order in a petition challenging the bulk messaging campaign allegedly carried out by the chief minister's office (CMO), primarily targeting state govt employees ahead of the assembly elections by accessing private data provided for the crediting of their monthly salaries.The bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, on Thursday, after completing the hearing in the petition filed by P Rasheed Ahamed, associate professor at KTM College, Malappuram, and K M Anil Kumar, an employee of general administration department, Thiruvananthapuram, said that the judgment would likely be pronounced next Monday.
During hearing on Wednesday, HC had directed the competent officer of the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) to be present before it to clarify how the data of govt employees from the Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala (SPARK) software was accessed and used to send bulk messages on behalf of the CMO. Accordingly, Sabareesh Karunakaran, one of the heads of e-governance at KSITM, appeared before HC on Thursday. He submitted that the IT Mission had sent the messages on behalf of CMO. A new platform was created for sending WhatsApp messages and the only centre ID that was validated and available at the time was ‘Chief Minister'. This centre ID had been created much earlier and had been used to send messages related to CMDRF. The officer further submitted that there is a nodal officer exclusively for this platform and only he can access it using multi-factor authentication, including username, password and biometric authentication. He also informed HC that it was the first time they were using WhatsApp to send such messages.Advocate general K Gopalakrishna Kurup, appearing for the govt, submitted that the CM, being the head of the executive of the state, has the right to address or send messages to members of the services in Kerala. There is nothing illegal or illegitimate in sending messages to govt employees using the database in SPARK. No violation of any law or regulation has been found in the matter, he submitted. Meanwhile, senior lawyer George Poonthottam, who appeared for the petitioners, raised serious concerns over the use of data collected for a specific purpose being used for another purpose without obtaining consent, alleging that it is illegitimate.HC orally asked how it could be said that the messages were illegitimate or sent for ulterior purposes when they were related to DA, salary and house allowance of govt employees. The messages were not sent from the CM's personal account but from the mobile number of the State IT Mission, which is a govt department, it observed.