New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Centre and WhatsApp on a plea to appoint Grievance Officer to enable subscribers to file complaints or grievances and comply with tax and other laws of India.
A bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Ms. Indu Malhotra issued notice on a petition filed by Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC) seeking response in two weeks. It said WhatsApp is the biggest messaging platform in India wherein it has more than 20 crore active users. As per market reports, WhatsApp has per user value of around US$42 billion, which makes it a Rs 5.76 lakh crore company, i.e. greater than any Indian company.
Yet, the petitioner said WhatsApp does not comply with provision mandating Grievance Officer and other laws of India. As per National Crime Records Bureau, in 2014-16, there have been 72,829 incidents of offences against public tranquility and a total of 3,64,526 persons were arrested for the same in 2016.
It said growth of such rumour based crimes are directly proportional to growth of user base of messaging services like WhatsApp, which continue to remain unregulated, not because of lack of laws, but absolute executive apathy. This Court has suggested that a new offence on lynching may be created and an appropriate punishment may be prescribed for the same.
It said on the one hand, authorities are partnering with WhatsApp, while on the other, it has been reported that WhatsApp is not co-operating with Indian intelligence agencies in their probe on terrorist activities. WhatsApp is a foreign company with no office or servers in India. To run Payments Service in India, WhatsApp is obligated to have its office and payments in India. Moreover, it is also required to have a Grievance Officer for users in India.
