Sify Communications gears-up to tap digital signature market

It may be recalled the ministry of company affairs (MCA) is implementing the Rs345-crore MCA21 project, under which all the offices of the Regisytrar of Companies (ROCs) would accept the various corporate filings in electronic form after June 2006.

The companies would interact with MCA through its portal www.mca.gov.in from where various forms would be available for downloading. The online initiative is already active in ROCs Coimbatore, New Delhi, Kochi and Pondicherry.

As the returns that are to be filed have to be signed, the MCA has mandated companies to obtain digital signature certificates from the certifying authority.

Says Shivangi Nadkarni, general manager, Sify Communications Limited, "A signature in a physical document signifies that the person has actually read the document and put his signature as an act of confirmation. There are ways to prove whether the signature is authentic or forged. On the other hand it is not so in the digital world."

Scanning a person's signature and affixing it on documents does not assure the authenticity of a document; nor is it legally binding as per the IT Act 2000. "The MCA has, therefore, made it mandatory for the authorised signatories to get the digital certificates from a Certifying Authority," says Nadkarni.

Presently there are seven designated certifying authorities in the country — Sify Communications, TCS (also the MCA21 project implementing agency), National Informatics Centre, IDRBT Certifying Authority, (n)Code Solutions, MTNL Trust Line and Customs & Central Excise.