NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Central Government's Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) to decide the Students' Federation of India (SFI) appeal against the permanent disabling of its official Instagram account.
“I expect the GAC to decide SFI's appeal within three weeks,” Justice Amit Mahajan said.
The judge was hearing an SFI application claiming that Instagram permanently disabled its official account, @SfiDelhi, on July 5.
The SFI, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), had approached the court seeking a review of the decision to disable the account. It claimed that it had earlier raised the issue with the platform's grievance officer.
“After Meta Platforms' grievance officer failed to resolve the issue, the organisation filed an appeal before the GAC on August 12,” the petition told the court.
The counsel added that the appeal had remained pending beyond the statutory period of 30 days and urged the court to direct the GAC to decide it.
During the hearing, counsel representing the central government told the court that the GAC would be advised to dispose of the appeal expeditiously, preferably within a period of three-four weeks.
In its petition, the SFI claimed that when it attempted to access its account, Instagram displayed a notice stating that the account "may be associated with another account that has gone against our rules" and that this allegedly did not comply with Instagram's "Community Standards on Account Integrity".
“The account, which had approximately 13,000 followers when disabled, has acquired an established audience comprising students and members of the public over time,” the SFI claimed, adding that its account was disabled without being provided an opportunity to be heard or having the violations specified.
The petitioner relied on Rule 3A(4) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which requires the GAC to deal with appeals expeditiously and endeavour to resolve them finally within 30 calendar days.
