IT rules: Centre moves SC over pleas pending in various high courts

New Delhi, July 6

The central government moved a petition in the Supreme Court asking to transfer all pending pleas challenging the validity of its controversial new Information Technology rules. 

A senior law officer confirmed the development.

Several petitions challenging the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, are pending adjudication in different high courts, including the Delhi High Court.

The petitions pending in the high court have challenged the new IT Rules intended to regulate social media firms like Facebook, Twitter as well as OTT players.

Under the new rules, the social media firms will have to put in place the complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country to deal with online content flagged by authorities and courts.

The development comes on a day when, in a major setback for Twitter in India, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday pulled up the micro-blogging site for failing to appoint a resident grievance officer (RGO), saying, "How long will your process take place? This cannot be allowed", even as the court gave a free pass to the central government to act against the social media firm.

While companies such as Facebook and Google have submitted their first report in compliance with the new IT rules, Twitter, a microblogging site that the central government’s ministers, as well as leaders of several parties such as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, use widely to reach out to their base, continues to be in a prolonged standoff with the Centre.

Twitter will be in trouble if it fails to comply with India rules: Delhi High Court

The Centre had informed the Delhi High Court that Twitter has failed to comply with the IT Rules, 2021 as of July 1, on four counts: Chief compliance officer not being appointed; The position of the resident grievance officer being vacant; The position of the nodal contact person (even on an interim basis) being vacant; and The physical contact address, which was shown to be there on May 29, was not available on Twitter's website.

In addition, Karnataka High Court is currently hearing a petition over a notice that Uttar Pradesh Police issued to Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari some tweets on the microblogging site a few days ago.

 The notice pertains to tweets posted after a video of an elderly Muslim man being assaulted in Loni, Ghaziabad, became viral on Twitter.

Uttar Pradesh currently has a Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government under Chief Minister Adityanath. 

— Agencies 

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