Justice Rekha Palli issued notice to the Centre and social
media platform Twitter seeking their stand on a plea by a lawyer, Amit Acharya,
claiming non-compliance of the rules by it.
While Twitter claimed before the court that it has complied
with the rules and appointed a resident grievance officer, the central
government disputed the claim.
"They have to follow it (rules), if it has not been
stayed," the court said.
In his plea, filed through advocate Akash Vajpai and Manish
Kumar, Acharya said that he came to know about the alleged non-compliance when
he tried to lodge a complaint against a couple of tweets.
During the hearing, central government standing counsel
Ripudaman Singh Bhardwaj told the court that Twitter has not complied with the
rules.
Acharya, in his plea, said that the new IT Rules took effect
from February 25 and the Centre had given three months to every social media
intermediary, including Twitter, to comply with them.
He contended that the three-month period got over on May 25,
but no resident grievance officer was appointed by Twitter to deal with
complaints regarding tweets on its platform.
The petition has sought a direction to Twitter to appoint a
resident grievance officer without further delay. It has also sought a
direction to the Centre to ensure that the IT rules are complied with.
Twitter had recently said it was committed to India as a
vital market, but criticised the new IT rules and regulations, saying they
"inhibit free, open public conversation".
Responding to Twitter's comments, the Centre had said the
social media platform was levelling baseless and false allegations to defame
India and dictating terms to the world's largest democracy.
The Centre alleged that Twitter refused to comply with new
digital rules requiring identification of the originator of a flagged message
and appointing grievance redressal officers and the purported commitment of the
US-based firm to India not only sounds hollow but completely self-serving.
Under the new digital rules, social media companies like
Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have been asked to identify within 36 hours the
originator of a flagged message as well as conduct additional due diligence,
including the appointment of a chief compliance officer, nodal contact person
and resident grievance officer.