Twitter failed to comply with new IT Rules: Centre informs HC

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New Delhi: The Centre on Monday (July 5) told the Delhi High Court that social media giant Twitter Inc has failed to comply with India's new IT Rules, which is law of the land and is mandatorily required to be complied with.

The Centre, in an affidavit filed in the high court, said any non-compliance amounts to breach of provisions of IT Rules, leading to Twitter losing its immunity conferred under the IT Act, according to news agency PTI.

The affidavit has been filed in response to a plea by lawyer Amit Acharya, in which he claimed non-compliance of the Centre's new IT Rules by the platform.

The government on Saturday issued a notice to Twitter giving it one last chance to "immediately" comply with the new IT rules and warned that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said that Twitter's refusal to comply with the rules demonstrated the microblogging site's ‘lack of commitment and efforts towards providing a safe experience for the people of India on its platform’.

Non-compliance with the rules would result in these platforms losing their intermediary status that provides them immunity from liabilities over any third-party data hosted by them. In other words, they could be liable for criminal action in case of complaints.