Can We Keep Gumastadhara Attendance and Wages Records Digitally? Seeking Quick Advice

Can we maintain the Gumastadhara Attendance Register and payment of wages register in electronic form? Please reply as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Refer to the notification issued by the state government on April 8, 2015. If your unit is covered by that notification, you can maintain the records in soft copy without specific prior approval.

Hello,

Could you please provide that notification in soft copy?

Regards,
Mahrshi

Dear Mahrshi ji,

The notification to which our Senior Member Shri. Saswata ji is referring pertains to the Maharashtra Government. You can find a copy of it at the link provided below, which is in Marathi:

[Click here to access the notification](https://www.citehr.com/523763-permission-keep-labour-records-electronic-form.html)

Thank you.

Legal Recognition of Electronic Records

Please refer to Section 4 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which is given verbatim as follows:

4. Legal recognition of electronic records: Where any law provides that information or any other matter shall be in writing or in the typewritten or printed form, then, notwithstanding anything contained in such law, such requirement shall be deemed to have been satisfied if such information or matter is:

(a) rendered or made available in an electronic form; and

(b) accessible so as to be usable for subsequent reference.

According to this section, you can maintain any record electronically. There is no need to have any permission. This Act has given you the permission.

Thanks to our member Shri. Shrikant Prabhudesai, who reproduced the above section in the link given in my earlier post. I studied the Information Technology Act, 2000 during my Cyber Law study. I know this section. I read this section several times, but I confess, I also had not applied my mind to this section until I read the post of Shri. Shrikant Prabhudesai.

About a year back, I had participated in a discussion on obtaining permission to keep the record electronically, along with many dignitaries, but unfortunately, no one drew attention to the above section in the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Today, you may still find many prosecutions in ANADI COURT for maintaining records in electronic form without permission, and this may continue in the days to come.

My question to all HR Fraternity is, who is responsible for it?

Regards

This has already been tested and has failed the test. First, Section 4 refers to electronic copies of records being valid. So, if you have a register (in physical copy), then you can have an electronic copy of the same as evidence of the original. Further, it is now clarified that the copy must be actually tamper-proof, which means that the copy must be an encrypted PDF (called PDF/A as far as I recall). I think another condition now inserted by courts (no, I don't have the details, but was told by an expert) is that the electronic records must be digitally signed using PKI that is valid in India. The computer software records do not qualify under this section. This is why there was a need to apply and get approvals. Now the state government notification has done away with approval. If your software meets the requirement as stated, it will be enough.

Dear Saswata ji,

Could you please explain and elaborate on the above? I have not understood it. I read Section 4 and also the sections 5 to 9 once again on your post but do not see any ambiguity in applying section 4 for keeping computerized records as required under various laws. Your inputs will be helpful to HR Fraternity.