Student’s Federation of India (SFI) has approached the Delhi High Court challenging the alleged delay by the Central government’s grievance appellate committee (GAC) in deciding its appeal against Instagram’s permanent disabling of one its accounts.

Justice Amit Mahajan is scheduled to hear the case on September 24. 

SFI is the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

According to SFI, Instagram permanently disabled the SFI Delhi account on July 5, stating that it “may be associated with another account that has gone against our rules” and therefore did not comply with its community standards on account integrity. SFI states that Instagram did not disclose any further particulars or identify the allegedly associated account.

The account, created in 2018, had around 13,000 followers. 

The petitioners said they first appealed the disabling on July 7 and subsequently approached Meta's grievance officer on July 9. However, they received no response, following which they approached the GAC on August 12.

As of September 16, the GAC website showed the appeal as “under process”, despite more than 30 days having elapsed, the petition stated.

The petitioner has relied on Rule 3A(4) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 requires the GAC to deal with appeals expeditiously and endeavour to resolve them finally within 30 calendar days.

It has also sought a direction to the GAC to conduct its appeal process in conformity with the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed under Articles 14, 19(1)(a), 19(1)(g), and 21. 

The petition was filed through advocate Naman Kumar.