SC ASKS GOVT TO REPLY TO PLEA AGAINST WHATSAPP

NEWDELHI: The Centre on Monday took time from the Supreme Court for responding to a PIL alleging that Whatsapp has failed to comply with Indian laws, including appointment of a grievance officer.

A bench led by Justice RF Nariman gave time to the government after the additional solicitor General Maninder Singh said he needed time to submit a detailed reply to the petition.

The court is hearing a PIL filed by an NGO, Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC), which also sought to restrain the platform from proceeding with its payment service unless it fully complies with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) provisions.

Senior advocate, Arvind Datar, appearing for Whatsapp, stated before the bench that the free messaging app had appointed a grievance officer for India. Singh, however, said the petition raises many other issues to which the government would like to respond.

Whatsapp reportedly has over 200 million users in India and almost one million people are “testing” its payments service. India is one of the largest bases for the Facebook-owned company that has over 1.5 billion users globally. CASC has approached the court, through advocate Virag Gupta, with various prayers such as payment of taxes by Whatsapp and compliance of data localization rules as per RBI directions by Whatsapp Payments services.