Govt Using Employee Data To Communicate Benefits Not Privacy Violation: Kerala High Court Dismisses Plea Challenging CMO's Bulk Messages

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday (March 10) dismissed a plea alleging violation of privacy of government employees and judges by the State by sending bulk messages to their phone numbers, which was illegally accessed from SPARK [Service Pay Roll Administrative Repository for Kerala].

Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas pronounced in open court:

"Thus, for legitimate purposes, including for good governance in a social welfare State, the data collected can be utilised without falling within vile of infringement of privacy. Since KSITM is a part of government of Kerala and the impugned messages were sent through the Whatsapp account registered in the name of KSITM by using the data in its possession, the nature of the messages was not for any illegitimate purpose...The question boils down to whether the data was used for a legitimate purpose...This Court has already held that there is neither any material to indicate that any data has been transferred to the Chief Minister's office nor is there any particular details available to conclude that the Chief Minister or his office had done any act...the data, there is no merit in this writ petition. Message sent by KSITM dealing with benefits like DA...cannot be regarded as violating privacy of the recipients of those messages. Hence, this writ petition is dismissed."

It was found that the messages challenged refer to informational aspects, regarding enhancement of Dearness Allowance and the house building advance and were sent as part of good governance of Welfare State:

"It is evident that the nature of the message sent relates to the salary and other added perquisites, which cannot by any rate of imagination be regarded as a political campaign to impugn the message to the colour of illegality or as something done for an illegitimate purpose...Message that has been sent to the employees of the State as well as the persons whose data is kept in the SPARK portal, relate to the DA...message can be regarded as a measure of communicating to the employees, the benefits rolled out relating to salary, and other perquisites, which can be viewed only as a measure of good governance by a Social Welfare State...This cannot be considered as illegal or for any illegitimate purpose, even if elections are on the corner. Yet another question canvassed by the petitioners was whether the identity of sender of the messages was shown as Chief Minister's office was illegally proper. Constitutionally, India follows the parliamentary system of governance..."

Last week, the Court had heard the Advocate General Gopalakrishna Kurup and Senior Advocate George Poonthottam, who appeared for the petitioners. It had then reserved the verdict.

The plea was moved by an employee of State's Department of General Administration along with an Associate Professor of KTM College, Malappuram who is also an elected member of the Syndicate of the University of Calicut. They had alleged that that the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) violated the privacy of government employees by illegally accessing their personal information, including mobile phone numbers, email IDs.

According to them, the personal information of the state government employees, judicial officers and beneficiaries of government schemes was illegally accessed by the CMO. The action, according to them, amounts unauthorised access of personal data in contravention of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) and is a violation of their right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

The petitioners' case was that the State could not have accessed information given by them for one purpose and used it for another purpose as long as they had not specifically consented for the same. The 9-judge bench decision in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.), and Anr. v. Union of India and Ors. was referred to argue that the decision lays down how data can be collected, how it can be collected by the government for a particular purpose, and when it can be used for a different purpose.

According to the petitioners, the primary question to be considered is whether the data mining as carried out is a legitimate exercise. If it is not a legitimate exercise, that is contrary to Article 21 and the Apex Court's decision in Puttaswamy case.

The Advocate General had argued that State is the custodian of data and that once consent is given by a Data Principal for storing data in SPARK, which is facilitated by Kerala State IT Mission, the State, including the Chief Minister becomes custodian of the data. Moreover, as long as there is no provision of law prohibited such an act, it is not illegal or illegitimate.

It was further contended that there is nothing illegal or illegitimate regarding the messages sent by the KSTIM using the centre ID of the Chief Minister's office since there is no law or regulation being violated. He also pointed out that prior this instance of Whatsapp messages, the communication was through SMS mode provided by the KSITM and it was just an infrastructural change.

He also brought to the Court's attention that not just any person is able to access the data, only a person authorised by a two-step process alone can access the platform and send messages. The Court had also interacted with Sri. Sabarish, one of the head of e-governance, KSITM (Kerala State IT Mission), who had appeared before the Bench pursuant to its oral direction.

Regarding the State's interim application for sending Thank You messages to CMDRF donors, the petitioners objected saying that acknowledgment was already received by donors and there is no need for further messages. The State contended that the same was not relating to SPARK and the data was already available at the CM's office as donations are permitted only upon submission of these data.

The petition is moved by Advocates George Poonthottam (Sr.), Nisha George, A.L. Navaneeth Krishnan and Kavya Varma M.

Case No: WP(C) 7090/2026

Case Title: Dr. Rasheed Ahammed P. and Anr. v. State of Kerala and Ors.

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Ker) 138