Twitter’s Non-Compliance With The New IT Rules- HC Gives One Week To Respond On Compliance

CASE BACKGROUNDS

• The DelhiHigh Court in early July 2020, said the Central Government could initiate action against Twitter in accordance with the new IT rules, in case of non-compliance.
• The micro-blogging site accepted a timeline on the appointment process of officers, as mandated, while maintaining that it reserves the proper rights to challenge the rules and regulations.
• In late July 2021, it was also noticed that despite of the 3 months of prearranged time to all SSMIs to comply with the IT Rules 2021, Twitter had failed to fully follow with the same.
• The non-compliance resulted in Twitter "losing its immunity” discussed under S.79(1) of the IT Act, 2000.

CASE PROCCEDINGS

• A single judge bench containing of Justice Rekha Palli heard a plea containing the non-compliance by Twitter India under the IT Rules, 2021.
• She remarked whether Twitter cared or not in the first place as if it wanted to do it, it had a lot of time to comply wholeheartedly.
• On Thursday, Twitter communicated with the court that it had appointed a citizen of India as its interim Chief Compliance Officer, effective on July 6.
• Nevertheless, the company said the officer’s service area would be that of a liable worker via a third-party contractor.
• It was also taken to notice that the word ‘interim’ does not take away the responsibility of those officers under the new Rules.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• Also, there was the deficiency of a Resident Grievance Officer for lodging complaints which resulted in a statement in which it was stated that Twitter India had deprived people of their statutory right to lodge complaints before the Resident Grievance Officer.
• This topic of executives has become a huge friction point between Centre and Twitter.

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