The Bombay High Court has recently directed three union ministries to make the web portal of Registrar of Companies a “Protected System” under section 70 of the Information Technology Act, in order to stop the unauthorized access. Also, the court directed the ministries to have a two-layered Digital Signature Certificate access system for the authorized users.

“We expect Ministry of Telecommunications, Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Ministry of Information Technology to give immediate attention to the issue as it is not limited to a particular company or a corporate house. The interest of entire business community is related to it”, said a division bench of Justice A K Menon and Gautam Patel.

As per section 70 of the IT Act, The government can declare any computer resource a protected system which directly or indirectly affects the facility of critical information infrastructure, by issuing a notification in its official gazette. Those who found guilty in unauthorized access of the protected system face a jail term up to 10 years or fine, or both. e-Solutions the country’s leading digital signature provider has appreciated the decision taken by the Bombay High Court.

The company, which offers Class 2 Digital Signature Online and other certificates for digital documentation and online transaction, said that it is the need of the hour and government ministries must consider the suggestion of the Bombay High Court to make the ROC website a protected system. There are many people who obtain DGFT Signature Certificate Online and other certificates from the company.

Besides the digital signature certificate, e-Solutions also offers USB Token Driver in order to ensure the safety and authenticity of the certificate. The company has also come in favor of the Bombay High Court’s decision on two-layered security for the digital signature certificate. As per the court, there could be two OTPs (One Time Passwords), one on mobile phone and the other in an email, given to the authorized person/persons in the company and not just the director, which is the current case.

In addition, the OTPs should be generated in real time and the ROC server also has a log system to check the identity of the person who uses it. Well! The latest direction from the Bombay High Court has come as a result of a Suo Moto hearing related to the case of corporate fraud where four directors of a company were removed from the board as they misused the digital signatures of one of the directors and uploaded the documents on the ROC website. The next hearing of the case is scheduled to November 26.