Twitter has to comply with new IT rules, says Delhi High Court

THE DELHI High Court on Monday granted Twitter three weeks’ time to state on record that it has appointed a resident grievance officer and observed that it has to comply with the IT Rules, 2021, if they have not been stayed.

In response to a petition alleging that the micro-blogging site has not appointed a resident grievance officer in accordance with the rules, Senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, representing Twitter, told the court that the officer was appointed on May 28.

Justice Rekha Palli issued a notice to the micro-blogging site and the Centre in the petition alleging non-compliance of the IT Rules, 2021, by the former and listed the case for next hearing on July 6.

The petition, filed last week by a lawyer Amit Acharya through advocates Akash Vajpai and Manish Kumar, stated that on May 26, Acharya came across “defamatory, false and untrue” tweets on Twitter made by two verified users and wanted to raise a grievance against them before the resident grievance officer under the IT Rules, 2021. The petition alleges that the “objectionable tweets” were made by Trinamool Congress 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,” it was alleged in the petition.

The petitioner also has argued that Twitter has appointed a US resident as a grievance officer but the same “is not in true sense implementation of the Rule 4 of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021.

Twitter on Monday told the court that Grievance Officer had not been appointed when the petition was filed but same has been done now.

The petition contends that the petitioner has a legal and statutory right under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021 to raise complaints against any defamatory, untrue and false tweets or post on Twitter before its resident grievance officer as it is a significant social media intermediary.