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A Petition has been moved in the Delhi High Court seeking action against Twitter Mumbai Office and overseas Office at San Francisco, in light of its failure to appoint Resident Grievance Officer under Rule 4, Intermediary Guidelines, 2021 and discharge their executive/statutory/all other obligations enshrined under the new notified rules. (In the matter of Amit Acharya v. UOI & Ors, Filed by Akash Vajpai and Manish Kumar)

As per Rule 4(c) of the Intermediary guidelines, every Significant Social Media Intermediary (SSMI) has to appoint a Resident Grievance Officer, who shall, subject to clause (b), be responsible for the functions referred to in sub-rule (2) of Rule 3.

Further, Rule 4 of the aforesaid IT Rules, 2021 put Additional due diligence on SSMIs.

It is the contention of the petitioner that despite IT Rules being notified on February 25, 2021, with three months additional time given for compliance, Respondents 2 and 3 have separately and jointly, failed to appoint any Resident Grievance Officer to redress the complaints of its users with regards to the violation of the aforesaid Rules.

It is further contended that they have failed in their duty to appoint a Nodal Officer and Chief Compliance Officer mentioned under Rule 4 of the Intermediary Rules, 2021.

Moreover, Petitioner has produced certain tweets allegedly defamatory, false and untrue against which he tried to look for Resident Grievance Officer on the page of Twitter, but found no details which he states, is in stark contravention of sub rule 2(a) of Rule 3.

Contentious Tweets;

Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra): Welcome to our Susu Potty Republic! Drink Gaumutra, smear cowdung & flush the rule of law down the toilet @DelhiPolice issue notice to Twitter & land up in their offices for rightly calling out @BJP’s fake document as manipulated media. Go figure.

Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal): If Bobde had been Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Modi would have been able to appoint his favourite Gujarat IPS, official Rakesh Asthana. What a huge difference a CJI who follows the law makes

 Questions of Law raised by the Petitioner;

1. Whether any Significant Social Media Intermediaries can refuse to do compliance of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021?
2. Whether in the case of non-appointment of Resident Grievance Officer by Respondent No. 2 & 3, the right of the Petitioner to raise objection to the defamatory, false and untrue posts on Significant Social Media Intermediaries under Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021 is taken away?
3. Whether petitioner has right to raise grievance against any defamatory, untrue and false social media post on any Significant Social Media Intermediaries under Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021?

Grounds inter-alia preferred

1. Petitioner has a legal and statutory right under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021 to raise objection and complaint against any defamatory, untrue and false tweets or post on twitter before its Resident Grievance Officer as it is a significant social media intermediary.
2. Tweets made by two user of twitter are offensive and objectionable and the Petitioner has a legal remedy under Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021.
3. There is no stay granted to Respondent 2 and 3 against implementation of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021.
4. Because aforesaid rules specially rules 3 and 4 empower the ordinary users who become victim of defamation, morphed images, sexual abuse and the whole range of other abusive content in blatant violation of law to seek redress.

Case Title: Amit Acharya v. Union of India & Ors