Read Time: 04 minutes

The centre has filed an affidavit before the Delhi High Court stating that Twitter has appointed Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Resident Grievance Officer (RGO), and Nodal Contact Person in compliance with the new  Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and that the government is "satisfied" with action taken by Twitter.

Acknowledging that Twitter has appointed the said officers as the company's employees and not as "contingent workers" the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), in a short affidavit, said that "Twitter has provided the names of the said appointed personnel and their respective positions also. The said affidavit (of Twitter) mentions their employment start date as August 4, 2021. Twitter has further enclosed their employment contracts along with the said affidavit as proof of such appointments".

The affidavit further stated that "Twitter has appointed the personnel in compliance to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 hereinafter referred as IT Rules, 2021".

Earlier the single Judge bench of Justice Rekha Palli had directed the Union Government and the petitioner to file an affidavit in response to Twitter's affidavit stating that the personnel have been appointed as per the new IT Rules.

The case pertains to a plea filed by Advocate Amit Acharya alleging that Twitter has not complied with the centre’s IT Rules to appoint a resident grievance officer, thereby seeking directions to the social media platform to comply with the rules

The petitioner has stated that the Information Technology Rules came into effect from February 25 and the Centre had given three months to every social media intermediary, including Twitter, to comply with them.

The petitioner stated that he came to know about the alleged non-compliance when he tried to lodge a complaint against a couple of tweets.

Case Title: Amit Acharya vs Union of India and Ors