The Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) is established under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 [“IT Rules”], made under the Information Technology Act, 2000. The GAC deals with the appeals of users (Digital Nagriks) aggrieved by decisions of Grievance Officers of social media intermediaries and other intermediaries on complaints of users or victims against violation of the rules and any other matters pertaining to the computer resources made available by the intermediary.

Any person aggrieved by a decision of an intermediary’s Grievance Officer may appeal to the Grievance Appellate Committee within 30 days of the receipt of communication from the Grievance Officer.

The GAC is an online dispute resolution mechanism. Users aggrieved by a decision of the Grievance Officer of an intermediary may file their appeal through the GAC’s platform, https://gac.gov.in.

The appellant can track the status of appeal through the Appellant Login window on https://gac.gov.in.

An appeal may be filed with GAC within 30 days of receipt of communication of the decision of the Grievance Officer whose decision is being appealed against.

GAC will upload its order on https://gac.gov.in, and the appellant will receive notification of the same by SMS and email. The appellant may view the order through the Appellant Login window on the platform.

Under rule 3A(7) of the IT Rules, the intermediary concerned is to upload on its website a report of compliance with the GAC’s order on the appeal.

The GAC consists of a chairperson and two whole-time members appointed by the Central Government, of which one will be a member ex-officio and two will be independent members.

The rules provide that the Government may establish one or more GACs. To begin with, Government has established three GACs.

No. Appeal can only be made against a decision of an intermediary’s Grievance Officer.

The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 aims to ensure a Safe & Trusted and Accountable Internet for Indian users. These rules cast specific obligation on social media intermediaries and other intermediaries, to observe diligence and provide that if they fail to observe such diligence, they shall no longer be exempt from their liability under law for third-party information or data or communication link hosted by them.

Broadly, the information which an intermediary is required to make reasonable efforts to cause its user not to host etc. is as under:
(a) Hosting, displaying etc. without having right over information
(b) Information that is obscene, pornographic, paedophilic or invasive of privacy including bodily privacy
(c) Information that is insulting or objectionable to a gender, race or ethnicity
(d) Information relating to or encouraging money laundering or gambling
(e) Information that promotes enmity on grounds of religion or caste
(f) Information harmful to child
(g) Information that violates intellectual property rights
(h) Misinformation and information that is patently false or misleading
(i) Information that impersonates another person
(j) Information that threatens India’s unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order, or incites commission of any cognizable offence, or is insulting other nation
(k) Information that prevents investigation of any offence (l) Information that contains software designed to endanger computer resource (m) Information that violates any Indian law

Grievance Officer means the officer appointed by the intermediary for resolving complaints from its users against violation of the provisions of the IT Rules or any other matters pertaining to the computer resources made available by it.

Highlights of the due diligence that social media intermediaries and other intermediaries are to observe include the following:
(a) To make reasonable efforts to cause its user not to host, display, publish, transmit or share any information as specified in rule 3(1)(b);
(b) To not host, store or publish unlawful information prohibited under law for the time being in force, on a voluntary basis on violation of rule 3(1)(b), and on actual knowledge upon receipt of a grievance or court order or notice from the appropriate Government or its agency.
(c) To have in place a grievance redressal machinery by which users or victims may complain to the Grievance Officer of the intermediary against violation of the rules and any other matters pertaining to the computer resources made available by it, and resolve in a timebound manner such complaints, including complaints in the nature of request for removal of information or communication link.

Under rule 3(2)(a), intermediaries are to prominently publish on its website, mobile app or both, the name of their Grievance Officer and his/her contact details, as well as the mechanism adopted for grievance redressal.

Intermediary is any person who receives, stores or transmits an electronic record on behalf of another person, or provides any service with respect to such record. Intermediaries include Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), network service providers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), web-hosting service providers, search engines, online payment sites, online-auction sites, online-market places and cyber cafes.

The appellant may use the email account given at the time of creating the appellant account on the GAC platform to generate an activation link, using which she/he may change the registered mobile number.