Delhi High Court rejects PIL seeking details of designated officers appointed by Facebook, X, Google to coordinate with government

The Delhi High Court recently refused to pass directions to social media intermediaries Facebook, Google and X (earlier Twitter) to notify/ publish the details of ‘designated officers’ who coordinate with Central government, police and security agencies to deal with the issues of national security, cyber-crimes and crimes against children [KN Govindacharya v Union of India and Ors]..A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that prayers made by the petitioner in his public interest litigation (PIL) petition are without any basis since ‘designated officers’ appointed by intermediaries are to solely interact and coordinate with the ‘designated officers’ appointed by the Central government and the government has not raised any grievance.The Court also noted that Rule 13 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (IT Rules 2009) does not require the intermediary to publish the details of its designated officers appointed under the said rule.The petitioner has failed to make out a case for seeking such a direction, the Court stressed.“There is no grievance raised before this Court by Respondent Nos. 1 to 3, i.e., Union of India, that the Intermediaries have failed to comply with their obligation under Rule 13 of Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. Therefore, in view of the fact that the officer appointed by an Intermediary under Rule 13 of Rules of 2009 is not required to interact with the general public, we find no merit in the directions sought by the Petitioner in this PIL for publishing their names in public domain,” the Court observed..The Court was also of the view that with the notification and implementation of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules 2021), the grievance raised by the petitioner stands resolved.“With the appointment of the Grievance Officer by the Intermediary under Rule 3(2) and setting up of the Grievance Appellate Committee under Rule 3A of the Rules of 2021, the members of the general public have access to a robust grievance redressal mechanism in case of circulation of any news or posts, which are liable to regulated under Rule 3(1)(b) of the Rules of 2021.”.The Court was dealing with a PIL petition filed by former RSS ideologue KN Govindacharya arguing that disclosure of the details of the officers of the intermediaries will significantly assist the police and security agencies in resolving the rising number of cyber-crimes against minors as well as issues related to national security.Facebook told the Court that as per Rule 13 of the Rules of 2009, the intermediary must appoint one officer to receive and handle directions from the Central government.It was stated that Facebook has appointed this officer but he is not an officer who deals with the public at large and that Facebook, on a regular basis, has been handling directions received from the Central government and no complaint has been received from the government in this regard. .The Court considered the arguments and disposed of the plea while concluding that no directions needed to be passed..Advocates Virag Gupta, Vishal Arun Mishra, Harshita Nigam and Umang Mangal appeared for the petitioner.Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Anurag Ahluwalia appeared for the Union of India.Advocates Tejas Karia, Varun Pathak, Amee Rana, Thejesh Rajendran and Akhil Shandilya represented Facebook.Advocates Shloka Narayanan and Abhishek Kumar for another respondent..[Read Judgment]