Twitter India on Monday informed the Delhi High Court that it has appointed a Grievance Redressal Officer (GRO) in compliance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The US based social media giant informed this during hearing of a plea filed by Delhi High Court Advocate and Twitter user Amit Acharya. In his plea the complainant said that he could not find Twitter’s GRO details when a complaint was sought to be made against certain objectionable tweets by Trinamool Congress Party member and Member of Parliament, Mahua Moitra and Journalist Swati Chaturvedi.
Appearing on behalf of Twitter, senior Advocate Sajjan Poovaya submitted before Justice Rekha Palli that on the date of filing the petition, the rules were not complied. However, the company has already appointed a GRO by a letter on 28th May.
During the hearing Justice Rekha Palli orally remarked that if the rules have not been stayed then they have to be complied with.
Delhi High Court, while giving three weeks to the micro blogging site to file the reply, posted the matter for July 6.
Under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the social media platforms will have to appoint a chief compliance officer residing in India responsible for ensuring compliance with the act and the rules. They should also appoint a nodal contact person who should reside in India for 24X7 coordination with law enforcement agencies. Also, social media platforms have to appoint a resident grievance officer who shall perform the grievance redressal mechanism as indicated.