By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday said the Centre was free to initiate action against Twitter in accordance with the IT rules in case it had breached them. Parallelly, new Union information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the law of the land is supreme, adding those who live and work in India have to abide by the country’s rules.
Justice Rekha Palli granted two weeks to Twitter to file hard copies of the notarised affidavit of a competent officer on compliance with the new rules. “It is made clear that since this court has only granted time to Twitter to file its affidavits to show compliance of the rules and there is no interim protection granted, it will be open for the Union of India to take action against Twitter in accordance with rules in case of any breach of the rules,” the court said, while slating the case for next hearing on July 28.
For its part, Twitter said it was not seeking any protection. The microblogging site said it has appointed a resident of India as its interim Chief Compliance Officer effective July 6. Regarding the Nodal Contact Officer, it will try to fill the position on an interim basis in two weeks. And the process of hiring an interim Resident Grievance Officer is expected to over be by July 11, it informed.
While the appointments are interim, it would not lessen the responsibilities imposed on those officers to ensure compliance with the new IT Rules, Twitter assured. Twitter also told the court that its first compliance report covering the period of May 26 to June 25 will be filed by July 11.
