The Delhi High Court has rejected a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to notify the details of the “Designated Officers” of social media intermediaries, such as Facebook, in terms of the Information Technology Rules, 2009.
A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan said in view of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules coming into force in 2021, the grievance raised by petitioner K N Govindacharya in his public interest litigation (PIL) matter filed in 2020 stands resolved.
The court said with the appointment of a “Grievance Officer” by the intermediaries under the latest rules and the setting up of the “Grievance Appellate Committee”, the general public has access to a robust redressal mechanism in case of circulation of any news or posts on social media and that no case was made out to direct publication of the names of the “Designated Officers” under the 2009 rule when they were not required to interact with the general public.
“The prayer of the petitioner that the details of the officer(s) appointed by an intermediary in compliance with Rule 13 of the Rules of 2009 should be made available in the public domain is without any basis,” the court said in a recent order.
“Rule 13 of the said Rules does not require the intermediary to publish the details of its officers appointed under the said Rule. There is no obligation under the Rules for a public notification of the details of the officer designated by the intermediary under Rule 13. The petitioner has failed to make out a case for seeking such a direction,” it added.
The court further said the list of grievance officers of an intermediary is required to be published in the public domain under the law and there was no grievance raised by the petitioner that this was not done.
“Accordingly, in view of the notification of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the relief sought in the present petition does not survive for consideration,” it said.
