When a social-media account is taken down, the user can appeal, first to the platform, then to a government-appointed Grievance Appellate Committee under the IT Rules. SFI’s complaint was that its appeal against the disabling of its Instagram account had been left undecided beyond the time the Rules allow. The Delhi High Court did not go into whether the takedown was right or wrong; it simply directed the Committee to decide the appeal within three to four weeks.
New Delhi: 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) against the permanent disabling of its official Instagram account [Students’ Federation of India and Another v. Union of India and Another].
Justice Amit Mahajan disposed of SFI’s petition, which alleged that the GAC had failed to decide its appeal within the period contemplated under the Information Technology Rules, 2021, recording that the appeal is expected to be decided within three weeks, after counsel for the Centre stated that the appellate authority would be advised to dispose of it expeditiously within four weeks.
The background
According to the petition, filed by SFI and its Delhi State Committee Secretary and moved through counsel, the account @SfiDelhi, said to have around 13,000 followers and used to disseminate information about the organisation’s activities and student-related concerns, was permanently disabled by Instagram on July 5. The notification, it was stated, said the account “may be associated with another account that has gone against our rules” and referred to Instagram’s community standards on account integrity, without, according to SFI, disclosing the identity of the allegedly associated account, the conduct said to constitute a violation, the specific policy breached, or the material relied upon.
SFI stated that its internal appeal to Instagram was rejected on July 7, that its subsequent complaint to Meta’s Grievance Officer on July 9 drew only an acknowledgment, and that it then filed an appeal before the GAC on August 12, which, it alleged, continued to show as “under process” as of September 15 without any decision. These are the petitioners’ assertions; the Court was not called upon to, and did not, adjudicate the correctness of the disabling or of the platform’s stated reasons.
The Grievance Appellate Committee mechanism
The Grievance Appellate Committee is a body constituted by the Central Government under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. It provides a user aggrieved by a decision of a social-media intermediary’s grievance officer, such as a decision to take down content or disable an account, with an appellate remedy outside the courts: the user may appeal to the GAC within a stipulated period, and the Committee is required to deal with the appeal, and endeavour to resolve it, within the timeline the Rules prescribe. The mechanism was introduced to give users a faster, dedicated avenue to contest content-moderation decisions by platforms.
SFI’s grievance was not, at this stage, with the outcome of that appellate process but with the delay in it, its case being that the GAC had not decided the appeal within the time the Rules contemplate, leaving the disabling of the account in place in the meantime. It contended that the delay affected its ability to use an established digital platform, and, it argued, its freedom of speech and expression, and that it had not been heard before the account was permanently disabled.
The Court’s direction
The Court did not examine the merits of the disabling or of SFI’s contentions on free speech and natural justice; the relief it granted was procedural. Recording the Centre’s statement that the appellate authority would be advised to dispose of the appeal expeditiously within four weeks, and its own expectation that it be decided within three weeks, the Court disposed of the petition, leaving the substance of the appeal, whether the account should be restored, to be decided by the GAC. The petitioners’ remedies, should they be aggrieved by the GAC’s eventual decision, remain open.
Why it matters
The order illustrates how the appellate architecture created by the 2021 IT Rules is meant to work, and what a user can do when it stalls. The GAC was designed as a time-bound remedy against platform content-moderation decisions; where it does not decide within the prescribed period, the aggrieved user’s recourse is not ordinarily to have the court itself adjudicate the takedown, but to have the court direct the Committee to perform its statutory function within a fixed time. The Delhi High Court’s order does exactly that, enforcing the timeline rather than substituting its own view for the Committee’s.
The case also reflects the recurring tension in platform content moderation between the platform’s enforcement of its community standards and the user’s interest in a reasoned, contestable decision. SFI’s complaint that it was told only that its account “may be associated” with a rule-breaking account, without particulars, echoes a wider concern about the opacity of automated or standardised takedown notices; the GAC mechanism exists precisely to test such decisions against the user’s objections. Whether SFI’s account is restored will depend on how the Committee, now under a court-set timeline, assesses that appeal on its merits.
Nothing has been decided on whether the disabling was justified. The Court’s role here was confined to ensuring that the statutory appellate process runs its course promptly; the free-speech and natural-justice arguments SFI raised remain to be considered, in the first instance, by the GAC, and thereafter, if necessary, in any further proceedings the petitioners may pursue. The order is a reminder that, for content-moderation disputes, the IT Rules’ appellate route is the designated forum, and that courts will hold the appellate body to its timelines.
Case Title: Students’ Federation of India and Another v. Union of India and Another
Bench: Justice Amit Mahajan, High Court of Delhi at New Delhi
Appearances: Advocate Apar Gupta, with Advocate Naman Kumar, for the petitioners; counsel for the Union.
Status: Petition disposed of. GAC directed to decide SFI’s appeal against the disabling of its Instagram account expeditiously, within three to four weeks. Merits of the disabling not adjudicated.