In final stages of appointing Resident Grievance Officer: Twitter tells Delhi HC

Twitter has told the Delhi High Court that the interim Resident Grievance Officer of the microblogging site withdrew his candidature on June 21 and it is in the final stages of appointing a person for the post of Resident Grievance Officer The company said it is in the final stages of appointing a replacement while in the meanwhile the grievances of Indian users are being addressed by the Grievance OfficerTwitters response filed in a petition alleging noncompliance with the Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021 in which the Delhi High Court had issued notice The reply states that Twitter Inc incorporated under US laws and operates services on microblogging platform Twitter in India and the process of appointing a replacement for the interim resident grievance officer who resigned on June 21Earlier Twitter told the Delhi High Court that it has complied with Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021 and already appointed Resident Grievance Officer under Rule 4 of the Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code Rules 2021 on May 28 A singlejudge bench of Justice Rekha Palli sought a response and listed the matter for July 6However petitioner advocate Akash Vajpai appearing for the petitioner had argued that appointment is not as per rules Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya appearing for Twitter Inc had told the High Court that there was not compliance at the date of filing of the petition but now Twitter has complied with the rules and appointed Resident Grievance OfficerThe Court was hearing a petition seeking direction to the Central 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 delayThe petitioner has said that he has filed a petition against the noncompliance of the Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021 by the Twitter Communication India Private Limited amp Twitter Inc and seeking an appropriate Writ or instruction against Respondent Centre Govt and Twitter to perform its statutory and executive duty under Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021According to Rule 4c of the IT Rule every Significant Social Media Intermediary has to appoint a Resident Grievance Officer who shall subject to clause b be responsible for the functions referred to in subrule 2 of rule 3 stated the petition The petition was filed by Amit Acharya a practising Advocate in the Supreme Court of India and Delhi High Court through lawyers Akash Vajpai and Manish KumarThe petition said that every significant social media intermediary has a responsibility not only to appoint a Resident Grievance Officer employee of SSMI who should be resident in India who will act as single point authority for receiving and disposing of complaints within a fixed time but will also receive and acknowledge any order notice and direction issued by the appropriate governmentcompetent authority or court of competent jurisdictionEvery SSMI significant social media intermediary will also develop a mechanism for receipt of the complaint in relation to violation of any provision under the aforesaid rule and will provide ticket number through which every complainant would be able to track status of hisher complaint Moreover It is also the responsibility of SEM to provide a reason for any action taken or not taken while disposing of such complaints the petitioner saidThe petition pointed out that Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021 has come into force from 25022021 and Respondent Centre had given three months to every SSMI to comply with these Rules and these three months period got over on 25052021 but Respondent Twitter has separately and jointly failed to appoint any Resident Grievance Officer to redress the complaints of its users with regard to the violation of the provisions of the aforesaid RulesAt this juncture it is also important to mention that Respondent No 2 and 3 Twitter Communication India Private Limited amp Twitter Inc not only failed to appoint Resident Grievance Officer but has also not appointed Nodal Officer and Chief Compliance Officer mention under Rules 4 of the IT Rules 2021 the petition saidThe petitioner apprised the Court that he is also a subscriber and user of Twitter when scrolling his Twitter on May 26 2021 found some of the tweets of two individuals very defamatory false and untrue but when he tried to look for Resident Grievance Officer so that he can register his complaint against the alleged defamatory and untrue tweets he found no details of the Resident Grievance Officer on the page of Twitter which is a clear violation of subrule 2a of Rule 3 which says that The intermediary shall prominently publish on its website mobilebased application or both as the case may be the name of the Grievance Officer and his contact detailsAlso ReadGoogle FB following new IT rules a big step towards transparency PrasadTherefore the petitioner has urged the Court to issue direction to Centre Union of India to pass necessary instructionorder to Twitter to appoint Resident Grievance Officer under Rule 4 of the Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code Rules 2021 without any delayHe also sought an appropriate direction against respondents to discharge their executive statutory and all other obligations in relation to Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code Rules 2021 without any delayThe petitioner also sought direction from Twitter Communication India Private Limited and Twitter Inc to implement Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code Rules 2021This story 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