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Corporate affairs ministry considering Infosys suggestions to make its website safe

Additional Solicitor General AK Singh informed the court that the suggestions have been received by the ministry and a decision would soon be taken. A division bench of justice GS Patel and justice AK Menon accordingly posted the matter for further hearing on April 22, directing the ministry to file its reply by then.

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The Ministry of Corporate Affairs on Thursday assured the Bombay High Court that it was actively considering the suggestions made by Infosys Ltd to avoid any fraudulent transactions on the Registrar of Companies (RoC) portal. The company has developed and maintains the portal for the ministry.

Additional Solicitor General AK Singh informed the court that the suggestions have been received by the ministry and a decision would soon be taken. A division bench of justice GS Patel and justice AK Menon accordingly posted the matter for further hearing on April 22, directing the ministry to file its reply by then.

Infosys has suggested to the ministry to have a two-layered digital signature certificate access system for authorised persons. The suggestions by the company, if accepted, would require a person registering for a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) to provide his PAN card details. When a director of a company tries to register himself on the ministry's website, the portal will verify the PAN card details entered with that stored in the DSC. Similarly, while applying for a Director Identification Number (DIN), a secret question will pop up and only after the correct answer to it is entered would the DIN be generated.

The suggestion has been given on the orders of the court, which had earlier directed three Union ministries to consider making the website of the RoC a 'protected system' under section 70 of the Information Technology Act, so that unauthorised access can be criminally prosecuted.

As per section 70 of the IT Act, the government can, through a notification in its official gazette, declare any computer resource, which directly or indirectly affects the facility of critical information infrastructure, to be a protected system. If found guilty of unauthorised access, a person faces a jail term of up to 10 years or a fine or both.

The court is hearing a suo moto (on its own) public interest litigation after a court had, in March last year, come across a case of corporate fraud, wherein four directors of a company were removed from its board after they forged the digital signatures of one of the directors and uploaded documents on the RoC website.

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