The Central government on Monday told the Delhi High Court that “in spite of three months’ time granted to all SSMIs (significant social media intermediaries) to comply with the IT Rules 2021, having expired on May 26, Twitter Inc has failed to fully comply with the same”.
The reply was filed in response to a petition alleging that the micro-blogging site has not appointed a resident grievance officer, as per the IT Rules 2021. The Centre told the court that Twitter had initially appointed an interim Resident Grievance Officer and Nodal Contact Person but it later informed the State that both the officers have resigned from their positions.
The grievances from India in the interim are apparently being handled by Twitter’s personnel from the US, which amounts to non-compliance with the IT rules, the Centre said in its reply.
It further added that as of 1 July, Twitter had failed to comply with the rules for four reasons: Chief Compliance Officer has not been appointed; the position of the Resident Grievance Officer is vacant; the position of the Nodal Contact Person is vacant; and, the physical contact address, which was shown to be there on 29 May, is once again “not available” on Twitter’s website.
The IT ministry further said that the IT Rules, 2021 are law of the land and Twitter is mandatorily required to comply with it. “Any non-compliance amounts to breach of provisions of IT Rules thereby leading to Twitter losing immunity conferred under Section 79 (1) of IT Act, 2000,” it said.
The affidavit has been filed in response to a plea by lawyer Amit Acharya, in which he claimed non-compliance of the Centre’s new IT Rules by the social media platform.
On 3 July, Twitter told the Delhi High Court that it is in the “final stages” of appointing an interim Chief Compliance Officer and an interim Resident Grievance Officer under the new Information Technology (IT) Rules. The micro-blogging site had also said that it might fall within the definition of a “significant social media intermediary” under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.