In final stages of naming a grievance officer, Twitter tells Delhi HC

NEW DELHI: Twitter India filed an affidavit in the Delhi high court on Saturday, saying it was "in substantial compliance" with the new information technology rules and "in the final stages" of fulfilling the statutory requirement of appointing a resident grievance officer and a chief compliance officer. The microblogging site then urged the court to dismiss a petition filed by a lawyer against it for alleged non-compliance, questioning the "legal and statutory" right of a user to sue a corporation registered in the US.
"A writ petition is not maintainable against Twitter under Article 226… It appears that the premise… is that the petitioner has the statutory and legal right to submit a grievance to the resident grievance officer."
The petitioner had complained against certain tweets and later moved court, citing alleged non-compliance with the Centre's new IT Rules by Twitter. Twitter pointed out that the complaint by petitioner Amit Acharya against certain tweets had been considered and disposed of swiftly by the company. It claimed Acharya had no locus standi to raise a complaint with respect to the tweets in question, but since his complaint had anyway been disposed of, "nothing survives" in the petition.
On grievances raised by other Indian users, Twitter said these were currently being looked into by a grievance officer till a permanent appointee took over.
The micro-blogging site also said it might fall within the definition of a "significant social media intermediary" under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Twitter informed the court that it had appointed an interim grievance officer earlier, but the candidate withdrew on June 21 "before steps could be taken to completely formalise the agreement".
In his plea, filed through advocates Akash Vajpai and Manish Kumar, petitioner Acharya said he came to know about Twitter's alleged non-compliance with the IT Rules when he tried to lodge a complaint against a couple of tweets. The next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.