Twitter defying law by not appointing grievance redressal officer: Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday pulled up Twitter for dilly-dallying on complying with new IT rules and said that the government was free to act against the micro-blogging site if it was in violation of the law.

Noting that the company has yet not appointed Resident Grievance Officer (RGO), Justice Rekha Palli asked the company's counsel, "How long will your process take? This cannot be allowed”.

"Come up with a clear response, otherwise you will be in trouble," the bench further told the counsel.

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The court sought information on Twitter's compliance with other provisions of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules, 2021) by the next date of hearing.

Turning towards the Union government's counsel, the bench said, “We are not stopping you from taking action, court has not granted any protection to Twitter. If they are in violation, you know what to do.”

The Centre, for its part, submitted that Twitter India is in clear violation of IT Rules, 2021.

Twitter was given a three-month window to comply with the IT Rules, but they did not do so, the counsel said.

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“I am not giving them any protection. I have already made it clear that they have to comply," Justice Palli said.

Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya, representing Twitter India, submitted that an interim grievance officer was appointed, but he had withdrawn his candidature on June 21.

After June 21, till July 6, the least it could have done was to appoint another person, the bench said.

“How long does your process take? If Twitter thinks it can take as long it wants in our country, I will not allow that," the judge added.

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Poovayya sought time to obtain detailed instructions from the San Francisco office of Twitter.

The court posted the matter for further hearing on Thursday. It asked Twitter to clarify by when it will appoint officials, mandated under the new rules.

On May 31, the Delhi High Court had issued a notice to the microblogging platform on a plea by advocate Amit Acharya. The plea had urged the high court to issue directions to the Centre to pass necessary instructions to Twitter India and Twitter Inc to appoint a Resident Grievance Officer under Rule 4 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 without any delay.