Twitter India's interim Grievance Officer steps down days after appointment

Amid the ongoing tussle between the Centre and microblogging platform Twitter regarding the compliance of newly IT laws, the interim Resident Grievance Officer (RGO) for India of the company has stepped down from his post on Sunday, said sources. As per the new IT rules, the new RGO has been appointed to address the complaints from Indian subscribers. 

According to sources, Dharmendra Chatur who was recently appointed as the interim resident grievance officer for Twitter India has been stepped down from his post on Sunday. However, Twitter India's spokesperson denied to comment on this matter. Meanwhile, on Twitter's Help Centre page, the name of Grievance Officer for India is currently shown as Jeremy Kessel instead of Dharmendra Chatur.

Earlier on June 9, Twitter had written to the government that it was making every effort to comply with new guidelines concerning social media companies and has appointed a nodal contractual person (NCP) and Resident Grievance Officer (RGO) on a contractual basis and was in advanced stages of "finalising the appointment to the role of a chief compliance officer," sources said.

Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had on June 5 said that it had given Twitter one last notice to comply with the new rules concerning social media companies.

The ministry said in the letter that the New Intermediary Guideline Rules have become effective from May 26.

"The provisions for significant social media intermediaries under the Rules have already come into force on May 26 2021 and it has been more than a week but Twitter has refused to comply with the provisions of these Rules. Needless to state, such non-compliance will lead to unintended consequences including Twitter losing exemption from liability as intermediary available under section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. This has clearly been provided under rule 7 of the aforesaid Rules," it said.