‘Access denied': Mumbai University can't see its digital infra as five staffers ‘protect' passwords; cyber audit hits a wall

Time of India

5 days ago

MUMBAI: Five employees from Mumbai University's Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) have been holding on to the access of the university's digital infrastructure, including the IT systems, email systems, software, and servers, among other things, for a while.
As a public entity, control of the university's entire infrastructure - physical or digital - is, by law, with the registrar. The university has written to these employees multiple times to seek handover of the access, but to no avail.
A university representative said the employees, who had moved the industrial court against the university over unfair labour practices, have been claiming they have access to the digital infrastructure as network and system administrators of the university and have been carrying out their work as per norms and have withheld the passwords due to the confidentiality involved.
The Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016, mentions that the university's registrar is 'the custodian of records, the common seal and any such other property of the university as the management council may commit to his charge'. Moreover, the act also bestows on the university's management council the right 'to control and arrange for administration of assets and properties of university'.
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"There were reports of cyber attacks that were reported by a govt agency, following which the university had to carry out a probe.
But as the administration did not have any access credentials, they could not carry out any audit or even implement preventive measures for cyber security," said a university source, adding the employees also have control over office-suite products used by the university. The employees, however, claimed that they have access controls by virtue of being the system and network administrators and that they are working in the varsity's best interest, said the source.
They also said they filed a complaint with BKC police station after the university informed them about the cyber attacks and have extended help when required, the source added.
The industrial court, in the matter filed by the four employees seeking permanency in employment along with all consequential benefits and arrears of salary, had ruled in an interim order on Nov 25, 2022 that prima facie the university 'had engaged in unfair labour practice'.
The court also directed the university to not terminate services of the complainants without following due process of law till final disposal of complaint and also restrained it from appointing new employees through a private agency or directly in place of the complainants, apart from restraining it from changing existing service conditions of the complainants.
While a senior university official said 'whenever necessary, the university takes and will take necessary action', messages and calls made to four of the employees went unanswered. One employee refused to disclose information but told TOI they are doing work as per the court's directive.