The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Central Government's Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) to decide Students' Federation of India (SFI) appeal against permanent disabling of its official Instagram account.

Justice Amit Mahajan said that the appeal is expected to be decided within three weeks.

The Court disposed of SFI's plea alleging that the GAC has failed to decide its appeal within the period contemplated under the Information Technology Rules, 2021.

This was after the counsel appearing for the Centre said that the appellate authority will be advised to expeditiously dispose of the appeal within four weeks.

SFI was represented by Advocate Apar Gupta. The petition, filed by SFI and its Delhi State Committee Secretary Sooraj Elamon, was moved through Advocate Naman Kumar.

SFI sought directions to the GAC to expeditiously decide its appeal filed on August 12 against the disabling of its Instagram account @SfiDelhi.

The account was permanently disabled by Instagram on July 05 and the notification stated that the account “may be associated with another account that has gone against our rules” and referred to Instagram's “Community Standards on Account Integrity”.

SFI claimed that Instagram did not disclose the identity of the allegedly associated account, the conduct said to constitute a violation, the particular policy allegedly breached, or the material on the basis of which the account was disabled.

It was stated that the account had approximately 13,000 followers and was being used as an established digital platform for disseminating information about SFI Delhi's activities, campaigns and student-related concerns.

After Instagram rejected the petitioners' internal appeal on July 07 stating that the account “still doesn't follow our community standards on account integrity”, SFI approached Meta's Grievance Officer on July 09.

It was thus claimed that Meta merely acknowledged receipt of the complaint and did not provide any substantive response concerning the disabling of the account.

SFI thereafter approached the GAC on August 12 by filing an appeal. It has been alleged that the GAC website continued to show the appeal as “under process” as of September 15, with no order or decision having been communicated to the petitioners.

The petitioners contended that the GAC's failure to resolve their appeal has resulted in deprivation of their fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.

They also alleged that they were not afforded an opportunity of being heard regarding the alleged violation of Instagram's community standards before the account was permanently disabled.

Title: Students' Federation of India & Anr v. Union of India & Anr