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NEW DELHI: Former BJP ideologue KN Govindacharya has questioned the NarendraModi government's enthusiasm for social networking sites, saying it only benefits companies like Facebook at the cost of public exchequer.

In an affidavit filed in HC, Govindacharya has also challenged the government's move to outsource management of official social networking accounts to private agencies, saying it endangers public data and may lead to more cyber crimes.

"Government can neither surrender the rights on public records nor can it give commercial usage rights without sharing the revenue from such operations, since there are many social media companies which offer sharing of revenue with users as per their usages. That the huge business empire of Facebook is created in India due to the Government's surrender of rights of public records and also active propagation/ advertisements of their business operations through government machinery," the affidavit says, seeking a stay on decisions of "many ministries, including the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD), which have issued tenders for appointment of management agencies for the operations of government social media accounts."

A bench of Justices B D Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul will take up Govindacharya's affidavit with the main PIL that is slated to come up for hearing on September 26. Earlier HC had observed that "use of internet services, which transfers public data to offshore locations, concerns the integrity and sovereignty of the country" and had questioned the Centre "why public records should go outside India".

Filed through advocate Virag Gupta, Govindacharya also faulted the government for being unable to implement compulsory usage of digital signatures for opening of social media accounts, "which may not only stop such misuse but also reduce or put a stop to many frauds and cyber crimes."

The affidavit came in response to HC direction on August 01 when it asked Govindacharya to elaborate on his allegations that social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, are being used by government officials and ministers for official purposes in violation of the Public Records Act.

It has come in the wake of the Centre's submission on August 1 that it has formulated a draft e-mail policy restraining government officials from using services of offshore internet service providers for official purposes which would be placed before the Cabinet at the earliest for approval

Govindacharya has also alleged that "under the pretence of free services to Indians, the private companies are capturing huge volume of data, including public records and thus monopolizing operations in the Indian economy".

His PIL seeks a direction to government to ensure safety of the data of 140 million Indian users which are transferred "to the US and is being used for commercial gains in violation of the right to privacy."

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Govts craze helping Facebook empire: Govindacharya