The petitioner explained to the Delhi High Court that Twitter has appointed a US resident as the Grievance Officer.
Twitter told the court that the officer was elected on May 28 in compliance with the rules by the Indian government. Justice Rekha Palli listed the case for the next hearing on July 6th. The Delhi High Court was hearing a plea filed against the US-based social media platform for alleged non-compliance with rules set by the Indian government.
The Delhi High Court on Monday granted a three weeks period to Twitter to document officially that it has appointed a Resident Grievance Officer. The court issued a notice to the social media platform and Center in connection with a petition alleging non-compliance of IT Rules, 2021 by the US-based company.
The plea, filed by lawyer Amit Acharya through advocates Akash Vajpai and Manish Kumar, states that Acharya, on May 26, claimed that “defamatory, false and untrue” tweets were made by two verified users and wanted to raise the issue before the Resident Grievance Officer. The petition alleged that the “objectionable tweets” were made by TMC MP Mahua Moitra and journalist Swati Chaturvedi.
“However, the petitioner was unable to find the contact details of the Resident Grievance on the website of Twitter… for raising his grievance,” the petition read, adding that an email was also sent to Twitter regarding the tweets.
The petitioner has also argued that Twitter has appointed a US resident as the Grievance Officer but the same “is not in true sense implementation of Rule 4 of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021”.
“The petitioner has a legal and statutory right under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021 to raise objection and complaint against any defamatory, untrue and false tweets or post on Twitter before its Resident Grievance Officer as it is a significant social media intermediary,” the plea read.
This law had come into effect with the Center stating that it needed a Resident Grievance Officer and a Chief Compliance Officer and a Nodal Contact Person to address any grievances people had over the platform for 24/7 coordination with law enforcement agencies and all three should be resident Indians.
The case was adjourned for the next hearing on July 6th.