Petition in Delhi HC against Twitter for allegedly not complying with IT guidelines

A plea has been filed in Delhi High Court against microblogging site Twitter for allegedly non-compliance of new social media intermediary rules 2021, mandating the appointment of a grievance officer for timely disposal of complaints.

The petition, filed by advocate Amit Acharya, sought a direction to the Union government to pass necessary instruction to Twitter Communication India Private Limited and Twitter Inc to appoint Resident Grievance Officer under Rule 4 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 without any delay.

The development comes a day after Twitter expressed concern over the new intermediary rules, describing them as a "dangerous overreach that is inconsistent with open, democratic principles", as the social media giant joined the chorus of other platforms over the regulations. WhatsApp has separately challenged validity of rules in the High Court, claiming it would break privacy of users and end-to-end encryption of its service.

Twitter also claimed "use of intimidation tactics" by the Delhi Police in the 'toolkit' case that has emerged as another flashpoint.

According to Rule 4(c) of the IT Rule, every significant social media intermediary has to appoint a Resident Grievance Officer, who would act as single point authority for receiving and disposing of complaints within fixed time. The officer would also receive and acknowledge any order, notice and direction issued by the appropriate government or competent authority or court of competent jurisdiction.

The petition pointed out the Centre had given three months to every social media company to comply with these Rules, which got over on May 25 but Twitter has failed to appoint any Resident Grievance Officer to redress the complaints of its users with regard to the violation of the provisions of the Rules.

The company has also not appointed Nodal officer and Chief Compliance Officer as mentioned under Rules 4 of the IT Rules, 2021, the petition said.

The petitioner claimed that he as a user of Twitter found some of the tweets of very defamatory, false and untrue but when he tried to look for Resident Grievance Officer to register his complaint, he found no details of the Resident Grievance Officer on the page of Twitter, which is a clear violation of the rule.