Grievance Appellate Committee:
Google informed the Delhi High Court that it had withheld Dhruv Rathee’s YouTube video in India pursuant to an order of the Centre’s Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC), while the issue of a global blocking order remains pending before a Division Bench of the High Court.
- Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) is an online dispute-resolution mechanism established under Rule 3A of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
- The IT Rules and GAC seek to promote a Safe, Trusted and Accountable Internet for Indian users by strengthening intermediary accountability and grievance redressal.
- It acts as a regulatory body to hear appeals from users (Digital Nagriks) who are aggrieved by the decisions of Grievance Officers (GO) of social media platforms and other intermediaries (e.g., Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter). The entire appeal process is conducted digitally.
- An aggrieved user can approach the GAC only after contacting the intermediary’s GO.
- An appeal may be filed before the GAC within 30 days if the user is dissatisfied with the Grievance Officer’s decision or receives no response within 30 days.
- Under the Information Technology Rules, 2021, Rule 3(1)(b) requires intermediaries to make reasonable efforts to ensure that users do not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share specified prohibited information.
- Rule 3(2) requires intermediaries to maintain a grievance-redressal mechanism, with grievances generally resolved within 15 days, removal requests within 72 hours, and specified intimate, sexual, impersonated or morphed content addressed within 24 hours under Rule 3(2)(b).
