The Indian IT law requires that the person encrypting the message (if from India) or the person intended for receipt (if the sender is outside India) provide the encryption key to the security agencies on being ordered to do so under law. This is despite some obvious loopholes in the expectations that the person being asked to do so is even technically capable of doing so. So S/MIME or GPG or other custom encryption methods don't really make sense for the intent you're suggesting.
Slashdot Mirror
The Indian IT law requires that the person encrypting the message (if from India) or the person intended for receipt (if the sender is outside India) provide the encryption key to the security agencies on being ordered to do so under law. This is despite some obvious loopholes in the expectations that the person being asked to do so is even technically capable of doing so. So S/MIME or GPG or other custom encryption methods don't really make sense for the intent you're suggesting.
... enacts laws that the person must de-crypt the message if required or get jailed. Lazy bums.