All those who flirt on e-mail, send confidential company information, or send hate mail about their bosses from anonymous IDs: here is what to do.
Stop right there. The humble e-mail is bouncing back.
In the seven years after the country passed its information technology law that made e-mails legal documents, there has been almost no awareness and compliance - and few seemed to care. But that is all changing, with e-mails at the heart of a series of new Indian lawsuits.
"People are extremely flippant and casual. We often do not perceive the-mail as a serious form of communication. People do not realise that it can have serious legal repercussions," said Pavan Duggal, an expert on internet-related laws.
The costs are heavy. Under Indian laws, offenders can be imprisoned for a maximum of 10 years and may have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 1 crore.
Employees of Integrix, a networking company, recently received an e-mail purportedly from one of its directors, promising to help them pass a crucial certification examination without sitting or it-"for a consideration".
The e-mail was traced back to an Internet Protocol address that provides the exact location of a computer. Bharti, the service producer, released the IP address on a court's instructions - showing that the mail came from a former company director, sacked for alleged financial irregularities. He is now being prosecuted after the e-mail was admitted as evidence.
The case also set a new precedent - the Delhi High Court allowed Integrix attorney Duggal to sue an anonymous person identified only by his IP address, before his identity was known.
{{/usCountry}}The case also set a new precedent - the Delhi High Court allowed Integrix attorney Duggal to sue an anonymous person identified only by his IP address, before his identity was known.
{{/usCountry}}A management trainee at the HDFC Bank lost her job after it was proved that she shot off anonymous e-mails using the bank's network to the clients of her ex-boyfriend, a lawyer, falsely claiming that he had been debarred by the lawyers' professional body.
An employee who quit a BPO in Gurgaon to set up her own back office operation has been sued on the basis of e-mails forwarded to herself in the weeks leading up to her resignation, allegedly containing privileged company information and client data.
A man in Mumbai lost his job for writing an e-mail with sexual undertones to a fellow employee in an Information technology-enabled services company. An employee of a rubber company in Noida faces charges of writing an e-mail full of expletives about his managing director from a fake ID.
Names of employees and some companies cannot be disclosed before courts give their rulings.
But Indian laws require a complex set of requirements to prove that e-mails have not been tampered with.
Until now, "it was driven by corporate governance, not laws of the land," said Manoj Chugh, South Asia chief of the United States-based EMC, whose company helps archive e-mails in keeping with Indian laws.
But companies are swiftly realising the need to archive mails - EMC's customer base grew by 150 companies, from 350 to 500, between May and December last year, he said.
"You write an e-mail and it is as good as a letter written in the physical world," said leading intellectual property attorney Pravin Anand.
Email Neelesh Misra: neelesh.misra@hindustantimes.com