New Delhi: The Centre told Monday the Delhi High Court that social media giant Twitter Inc has failed to comply with India’s new IT Rules. It means that Twitter could lead to losing its immunity conferred under the Information Technology (IT) Act. The Centre filed an affidavit in the high court. It said as per the details obtained from Twitter’s website or mobile application, as an interim, the grievances from India are being handled by the platform’s official located in the US. It amounts to non-compliance of the IT Rules, 2021.
The IT Rules, 2021 are the law of the land and Twitter is mandatorily required to comply with the same. This was said the affidavit 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 microblogging platform. The matter is scheduled to come up for hearing again Tuesday.
The Centre’s affidavit was filed by N Samaya Balan who is working as Scientist-E in the Cyber Law Group with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY). He said admittedly Twitter Inc is an intermediary within the meaning of provision of IT Act, 2000 and a Significant Social Media Intermediary (SSMI) under the IT Rules 2021.
It said that in spite of the three months’ time granted to all SSMIs to comply with the IT Rules 2021 having expired May 26, Twitter has ‘failed to fully comply’ with the same. The IT Rules were notified February 25.
“I submit that the respondent no.2 (Twitter Inc) had initially appointed the interim resident grievance officer (RGO) and the interim nodal contact person. Later the respondent no.2 (Twitter Inc) informed the answering respondent (MEITY) that the said interim RGO and nodal officer have withdrawn/ resigned from their positions.
“I submit that as per the details gleaned from the respondent No. 2 website/mobile application, in the interim the grievances from India are being handled by personnel of respondent No. 2 situated in the United States of America which amounts to non-compliance with the IT Rules 2021,” the affidavit said.
The affidavit, filed through Central government standing counsel Ripudaman Singh Bhardwaj, said that Twitter has failed to comply with the IT Rules, 2021 as on July 1 for the following reasons – chief compliance officer has not been appointed; the position of the RGO is vacant; the position of nodal contact person (even on an interim basis) is vacant, and the physical contact address, which was shown to be there May 29, is not available again on Twitter website.
The reply added that the immunity conferred on intermediaries under the provision of law is a conditional immunity subject to the intermediary satisfying the conditions under the Act and as provided in Rule 7, failure to observe the IT rules,2021 results in provisions of Section 79(1) of the IT Act, not being applicable to such an intermediary.
The Centre said as Twitter qualifies as a SSMI it is obligated to comply with the provisions of the IT Rules, 2021.
Twitter has also filed its affidavit July 3 stating that it was in the ‘final stages’ of appointing an interim chief compliance officer and an interim resident grievance officer under the new IT Rules. In the meantime, grievances raised by Indian users are being looked into by a grievance officer, Twitter Inc had stated.
The microblogging site has also said it may fall within the definition of a ‘significant social media intermediary’ under the IT Rules, 2021.
