Kochi, March 10 The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea seeking to restrain messages sent by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) to officials regarding grants of Dearness Allowance (DA) and house building allowance (HBA), saying that such communications cannot be regarded as a political campaign even if elections are imminent.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas said that the nature of the messages relates to the salary and other perquisites or benefits of government employees or officials and can be viewed as "a measure of good governance" in a social welfare state.
The court order, which comes as a relief for the state government, also said that the messages cannot "by any stretch of imagination" be regarded as a political campaign or as something done for an illegitimate purpose.
"Such a step cannot be branded as illegal or for any illegitimate purpose, even if elections are on the anvil," it said.
The court further held that there was no material to indicate that any data was transferred to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) nor that the CM or his office had any access to the same.
"... there is no merit in this writ petition. The message sent by Kerala State Information Technology Mission (KSITM) informing details about DA and HBA cannot be regarded as violating the right to privacy of the recipients of those messages. Hence, this writ petition is dismissed," it said.
The order came on the plea by Dr Rasheed Ahammed, an associate professor at a college in Malappuram, and Anil Kumar K M, a clerical assistant at the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, who claimed that sending such messages amounts to an election campaign.
The petitioners had alleged that the messages were sent by accessing private data provided on the Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala (SPARK) for intimating the credit of the monthly salary and benefits.
They had also claimed that data from the KSMART (Kerala Solutions for Managing Administrative Reformation and Transformation) system was also taken for sending the messages.
SPARK is an e-governance initiative under the Finance Department of Kerala and has been operational since 2007, aimed at digitalising HR-related services and salary data of government employees.
Rejecting the allegations, the state government said that the WhatsApp messages informing employees about the grant of Dearness Allowance (DA) arrears and the reinstatement of HBA were budgetary assurances and cannot be termed to be political in nature.
It also claimed that since the Whatsapp message contained no reference to any political party and had only contained factual administrative data, it cannot be regarded as access to any personal data of the government employees for any illegal or illegitimate purposes.