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Delhi high court disposes of plea against Twitter, says satisfied with IT Rules compliance
Justice Rekha Palli took note of the Union government’s affidavit that expressed satisfaction over Twitter’s action
New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Tuesday disposed of the plea against Twitter India for not complying with the recently implemented Information Technology Rules, 2021, saying it was satisfied with the compliance shown by the micro-blogging website.
Justice Rekha Palli took note of the Union government’s affidavit that expressed satisfaction over Twitter’s action. The Centre had told the high court that Twitter has complied with the Information Technology Rules, 2021 and has appointed three-tier grievance redressal officers as their “employee” and not as a “contingent worker”.
“I submit that Twitter has appointed the personnel in compliance to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 hereinafter referred as IT Rules, 2021,” Centre’s response in the high court said.
It said that Twitter has provided the names of the personnel appointed along with their respective positions, date of employment and contracts.
Taking note of the submissions, Justice Palli disposed of the plea.
Twitter, in its affidavit, said it had appointed a permanent Resident Grievance Officer (RGO), Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and Nodal Contact officer (NCO) in compliance to the new Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021 on August 4.
The affidavit was filed on September 22, in a petition by lawyer Amit Acharya who had contended that IT Rules came into effect from February 25 and the Centre had given three months to every social media intermediary, including Twitter, to comply with them.
However, even after the lapse of three-month period on May 25, till date no resident grievance officer was appointed by Twitter to deal with complaints regarding tweets on its platform, due which, he could not take action against two alleged offensive tweets by TMC MP Mohua Moitra and journalist Swati Chaturvedi.
Twitter had later disposed of his plea saying that the tweets in question were not offensive according to its policies.
On August 6, Twitter, through an affidavit, had told the court that it had appointed Vinay Prakash, an Indian resident, as the RGO and CCO on August 4. It further added that Shahin Komath has been employed as the NCO.
However, the Centre had said that the position was “yet to be verified” and had sought time to recheck the same.
