New Delhi, 24 September (H.S.): The Delhi High Court has directed the Central Government’s Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) to decide an appeal filed by the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), a Left-affiliated student organisation, challenging the blocking of its Instagram account. A Bench of Justice Amit Mahajan directed the GAC to decide the SFI’s appeal within three weeks.

During the hearing, advocate Apar Gupta, appearing for the SFI, submitted that the Court had, in similar cases, directed the government to take a decision on appeals. The Court noted that the SFI had filed its appeal before the GAC on August 12, but no order had been passed on it so far. The Court subsequently directed the government to decide the appeal and disposed of the petition.

According to the SFI’s petition, Instagram permanently disabled the organisation’s Delhi-based account on July 5, stating that it might be linked to another account that had violated its rules. Instagram had said that the SFI account did not comply with its prescribed Community Standards. The petition states that Instagram provided no further details and did not identify the account with which the SFI account was allegedly linked.

The SFI initially appealed against the action on July 7 and subsequently approached Meta’s Grievance Officer on July 9. However, it received no response, following which it approached the GAC on August 12. The petition states that as of September 16, the status of the appeal on the GAC website was shown as “under process”, even though more than 30 days had elapsed since the appeal was filed.

The petition also cited Rule 3A(4) of the Information Technology Rules, under which the GAC is required to deal with appeals expeditiously and endeavour to dispose of them finally within 30 calendar days.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar