Twitter appoints interim grievance officer, Delhi HC to hear plea on compliance in July

Microblogging platform Twitter Inc told Delhi High Court on Monday that it has appointed a resident grievance redressal officer (RO) for India, in line with the new social media rules which came into effect on May 26.  

Further, the court has postponed the hearing to July 6, giving time to Twitter to file an affidavit and the petitioner to respond. 

According to reports, the court was hearing a plea filed by Amit Acharya, a practicing advocate in the Delhi High Court who said that, as a user, he could not find details of grievance redressal officer.  

Recently, Twitter India updated its website to indicate that it had appointed Dharmendra Chatur, partner designate at Bengaluru based law firm Poovayya & Co as interim resident grievance officer for India.  

The plea was heard by single judge bench of Justice Rekha Palli and Twitter is being represented by senior advocate Sajan Poovayya. The judge also observed that as long as the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021 were in effect, the entities will have to follow the regulations.  

"As we have stated earlier, Twitter strives to comply with applicable law in India. We continue to be strictly guided by principles of transparency, a commitment to empowering every voice on the service, and protecting freedom of expression and privacy under the Indian law," a Twitter spokesperson told TechCircle in response to specific queries.

The hearing comes days after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Delhi Police were engaged in a face-off with Twitter based on a statement the company had issued. Twitter had expressed “…concerns with regards to the use of intimidation tactics by the police…” referring to a visit by the Special Cell of Delhi Police to serve a notice to the company. Following this, both the union government and Delhi Police issued separate statements asking Twitter to comply with the laws of India.