By Sharveya Parasnis
The Section 69A committee constituted by the Government to block Proton Mail found other unrelated compliance issues with the email service, stated the Additional Solicitor General to the Karnataka High Court (HC) on July 3. The court had ordered the Government to initiate blocking proceedings under the Information Technology (IT) Act in April this year, after a Delhi-based firm complained that it had received offensive emails from a Proton Mail account.
The Government lawyer explained that they had directed the blocking of two Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) which the original Writ Petition mentioned and initiated a committee under Section 69A of the IT Act to investigate the encrypted email service. During the course of the committee鈥檚 hearings, it had discovered other 鈥渟hortcomings鈥 with Proton Mail and sent it a legal notice. The lawyer stated that the committee would analyse Proton Mail鈥檚 response and reach a decision in eight weeks鈥 time.
Does ProtonMail Need To Have A Server In India?
Advocate Jatin Sehgal, representing M Moser Design Associates 鈥 the company that received the contentious emails in question 鈥 argued that Proton Mail was non-compliant with the IT Act as it did not have a server in India. He referred to Section 29 of the IT Act, which allowed the Government to have access to any computer system if it suspected that the Act had been violated.
鈥淎ny person who intends to operate within this country, as per Information Technology Act, the intermediary should provide an access with regard to a server in this country,鈥 said Sehgal.
He alleged that Proton Mail had taken its servers outside of India to prevent the Government from obtaining access to its systems.
However, Proton Mail鈥檚 advocate, Manu Kulkarni, rejected this claim. He argued that the location of the server was not relevant and that the law did not require an intermediary to have an Indian server to operate within the country.
鈥楤lock All Offending Email Addresses鈥
Sehgal further alleged that his client was still receiving offensive emails, upon which the court ordered him to submit the details to Proton Mail, which would have to block those accounts.
He also asked the court to compel the email service to reveal the IP addresses of the computers sending the emails, but the court dismissed this plea.