Supreme Court issues notice to WhatsApp in challenge to payments service

The Supreme Court today issued notice to WhatsApp Inc as well as the Union Ministries of Law, Finance, and Electronics and Information Technology in the case relating to the payments service run by the company..The petition filed by think-tank Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change came up before the Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Indu Malhotra today. It was filed by Advocates PK Seth and Archana Pathak Dave, and argued by Advocate Virag Gupta..The PIL seeks a direction to the Centre to compel WhatsApp to appoint a Grievance Officer, as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), for its payments service..The RBI circular mandates that to run a payment service in India, a company must have its offices and payments in India. This rule appears to be violated by the instant messaging service company, considering that it is a foreign company having no offices or servers in India..The petition has sought a direction to WhatsApp to appoint a Grievance Officer and to comply with the tax laws and other laws in India. It is claimed that WhatsApp is being allowed to continue with its payments services and other services “without any checks”..“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. Yet, it is being allowed to continue with its Payments and other services, without any checks,” states the petition..According to the petition, WhatsApp has over 20 crore active users in India, and yet, the messaging service has no grievance redressal number for users in India..It is further stated that despite being the largest messaging platform in India, WhatsApp remains largely unregulated, given that the laws in place are not complied with..The petition prays for a writ of mandamus to be issued, directing the company to appoint a Grievance Officer in line with Rule 3(11) of the Information and Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011..The Court today issued notice to the respondents, returnable in four weeks.