In final stages of appointing grievance officer: Twitter informs Delhi HC
Twitter has informed the Delhi High Court that it is in the final stages of appointing a resident grievance officer in India.
Even before steps were taken to formalise the appointment, the interim grievance officer withdrew his candidature on June 21, Twitter said in a reply submitted in the High Court.
"The answering respondent is in the final stages of appointing a replacement while in the meanwhile, the grievances of the Indian users are being addressed by the grievance officer," the microblogging site said in its reply.
Appointing a resident grievance officer is one of several norms which Twitter and other social media platforms operating in India have to follow under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Twitter's interim resident grievance officer Dharmendra Chatur had quit his post. After Chatur had stepped down, Twitter appointed California-based Jeremy Kessel as the new grievance officer for India. However, Kessel's appointment was not in line with new IT rules, as these rules mandate that all nodal officials, including the grievance redressal officer, should be India-based.
A plea was filed against Twitter in the Delhi high court on May 28 by Amit Acharya, a practising advocate at the High Court and the Supreme Court. On May 31, a bench of Justice Rekha Palli issued a notice to the microblogging site and gave it three weeks to reply, and posted the matter for further hearing on July 6.
In its response, Twitter said the petitioner was aggrieved by tweets of TMC MP Mahua Moitra and journalist Swati Chaturvedi but he has failed to make both as parties to his plea. With regard to his claim that particular tweets by both Moitra and Chaturvedi were false, illegal and defamatory, the Twitter said, "this is not something, we can be arbiter of".
The plea moved by Acharya, through Advocate Akash Vajpai, urged the High Court to issue direction to the Centre to pass necessary instruction to Twitter India 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 delay.
The plea contended that Twitter is a "Significant Social Media Intermediary" (SSMI) as laid down under the IT Rules, 2021 and therefore must ensure compliance with the statutory duties imposed upon it by the provisions of these rules."