In reply to a petition filed by Amit Acharya, who is a practising advocate in Supreme Court as well as Delhi High Court, through lawyers Akash Vajpai and Manish Kumar, US-based social networking service Twitter Inc. has argued that a writ petition was not maintainable against it under Article 226 as it is US-registered.
In addition, it was neither the originator nor the publisher of the electronic records transmitted through its communication system or platform.
The petition has alleged that since Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Rule), 2021, come into effect and Respondent Centre has already provided every SSMI (significant social media intermediary) with three months to comply with these rules that ended on May 25, Respondent Twitter has not yet appointed any Resident Grievance Officer required to redress the users’ complaints regarding the violation of the provisions of the aforesaid rules.
On May 31, the court had granted the microblogging site a three week period to state on record that the appointment of a Resident Grievance Officer has taken place. Moreover, it needs to observe that it has to comply with, if they have not been stayed.
After the interim Resident Grievance Officer withdrew his candidature on 21st June, Twitter has informed the Delhi High Court that it was in the final stages of appointing a Resident Grievance Officer on Saturday.
As per the petition, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and journalist Swati Chaurvedi had posted “objectionable” tweets.
