The Centre has told the Delhi high court that social media company 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.
In an affidavit filed before Justice Rekha Palli, the Union government has said that IT rules are the “law of the land” and Twitter has to “mandatorily” comply with it, failing which it would lose its protection from prosecution in case content of unlawful nature is posted by its users.
“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.
“Twitter has clearly acknowledged that the said personnel Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Nodal Contact Person (NCO), and Resident Grievance Officer (RGO) are appointed as Twitter’s employees and not as ‘contingent workers’. Twitter has provided the names of the said appointed personnel and their respective positions also….”
“The said affidavit (Twitter’s affidavit on August 6) mentions their employment start date as August 4, 2021. Twitter has further enclosed their employment contracts along with the said affidavit as proof of such appointments,” the document read.
{{/usCountry}}“The said affidavit (Twitter’s affidavit on August 6) mentions their employment start date as August 4, 2021. Twitter has further enclosed their employment contracts along with the said affidavit as proof of such appointments,” the document read.
{{/usCountry}}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.