NEW DELHI: Twitter India on Saturday informed the Delhi High Court that an interim grievance officer has been appointed in the wake of Dharmendra Chatur stepping down from the post after a few weeks on the job.
Filing an affidavit, the social networking platform has told the court that they are in the final stages of hiring a full-time resident grievance officer in accordance with the new IT rules.
“We are in the final stages of appointing a replacement. In the meanwhile, the grievances of Indian users are being addressed by the Grievance Officer,” the affidavit stated.
The affidavit was in response to a notice issued by the Delhi High Court to Twitter’s alleged non-compliance with the new information technology rules. Asking for the petition against it to be dismissed on grounds that the petitioner did not have locus standi, the microblogging website submitted details of the Interim Resident Grievance Officer.
“The petition is not maintainable since Twitter is a corporation registered in the United States of America,” it told the court. Twitter also informed the High Court that the IT rules clearly state that only the victim can file a complaint with the grievance officer.
The petitioner had raised objections to tweets they were not personally affected by and, therefore, cannot claim to be a victim.
A day after Chatur resigned from the post on June 27, Twitter had appointed its California-based global legal policy director Jeremy Kessel as the new grievance officer for India. However, the new IT rules call for an Indian resident for the role.
The IT Rules, 2021, came into force on February 25 and social media firms, including Twitter, had time till May 25 to comply.
Non-compliance with the digital rules would result in these platforms losing the intermediary status that provides them immunity from liabilities over any third-party data hosted by them.