MARGAO: The Revenue Department has been issuing digitally signed documents on its website goaonline.com; however, these digitally signed documents such as Form 1 & 14 are not accepted by other government departments.
The issue was raised by Dominic Noronha from Dramapur-Sirlim who had paid for a Form 1 & 14 from the goaonline.com and had submitted to the PWD. The PWD official stated that department has not received any notification to accept digitally signed document. Herald has confirmed that indeed the Revenue Department has not issued any circular to other departments regarding the use of digitally signed documents.
The digitally signed documents issued by goaonline.com used digital signatures issued by (n)Code Solution CA 2014 by Gujarat Naramada Valley Fertilizer and Chemicals on behalf of the Revenue Officer Manoj Korgaonkar.
But what happens if someone challenges a digitally signed document in court or claims it is forged? “People are not aware that digitally signed documents from goaonline.com have a validity of two years. If you see the properties of the digital signature, it states that Signature Validity is Unknown”, Satish Naik, an IT profession said.
Naik stated that the documents issued by goaonline.com do not have any Certificate Policy Statement.
“Who will be responsible for authenticating the document? Is it the revenue department or (n)Code Solutions? Even if it is proven that a digitally signed document is forged under Section 464 of IPC, does the police have a cyber forensic department and if so, how long will it take to get an affidavit from (n)Code Solutions?,” said Naik.
Herald contacted the Revenue Secretary Anthony John D’Souza who said he will review the matter.
“Clearly, the government has not given any thought before implementing digital signatures. There is no statement on the Form 1 & 14 which states that this is a digitally signed document and therefore doesn’t have any stamp or signature. We see this on bank statements,” said Noronha. Noronha informed that the Citizens Charter makes no mention of digitally signed documents and how to use it.
