Top tech industry association Nasscom has asked that the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology (MeitY) ensure that its proposed grievance appellate panel is institutionally strong. Sources told BusinessLine that in its July 6 letter to the ministry. Nasscom told the ministry that their proposed plan to bring in an appellate tribunal for content moderation does not address several concerns regarding its constitutionality, transparency, functioning, and legal status.
Nasscom noted that the mechanism for the grievance appellate tribunal must be institutionally strong, have independent subject matter experts, and have transparency measures built into its working and decisions. According to sources, Nasscom has made submissions to that effect to the ministry.
Nasscom is the country’s apex tech body, with over 2,000 tech companies, including Google, as its members. Nasscom’s July 6 letter comes in response to MeitY’s proposed draft amendments to the 2021 IT Rules. The tech body submitted this letter to the ministry as part of the prelegislative consultation process before the bill goes to parliament.
Last month, MeitY issued draft amendments to the IT Rules 2021, which it issued last year. As per the release, the broad principles around the amendments for the ministry were, “The IT Rules, 2021 provide for a robust grievance redressal mechanism. However, there have been many instances where grievance officers of intermediaries either do not address the grievances satisfactorily and/or fairly. In such a scenario, the need for an appellate forum has been proposed to protect the rights and interests of all.”
Core proposal
A core proposal as part of these amendments has been the proposed creation of an appellate body, called the “Grievance Appellate Committee” under rule 3(3) of the IT Rules 2021 by invoking section 79 of the IT Act. Users will have the option to appeal against the grievance redressal process of the intermediaries before this new appellate body.
The Committee will endeavour to address the user’s appeal within a period of 30 days. This is made necessary because currently there is no appellate mechanism provided by intermediaries, nor is there any credible self-regulatory mechanism in place. Even after this amendment, users can directly approach the court of law to appeal their grievances.
Debatable formulation
The proposed formulation of this panel has raised major debate in the tech world, where on one hand, activists or foundations such as the Internet Freedom Foundation argue that this could enable government overreach into policing content online if the panel does not have a strong judicial foundation. On the other hand, despite key accountability and grievance redressal measures mandated by IT rules last year, the transparency reports of major social media intermediaries indicate that engagement for grievance redressal is still very poor for big companies such as Meta, Google, and Twitter.
Published on
July 08, 2022
