India's IT Ministry on January 28 established three Grievance Appellate Committees (GACs) as required under the recently amended IT Rules, 2021. The GACs will be headed by officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and consist of the following members: GAC 1 Rajesh Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home Affairs – Chairperson Ashutosh Shukla, Indian Police Service (Retired) – Whole-time member Sunil Soni, Former Chief General Manager and Chief Information Officer, Punjab National Bank – Whole-time member GAC 2: Vikram Sahay, Joint Secretary in charge of the Policy and Administration Division in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting – Chairperson Commodore Sunil Kumar Gupta (Retired), Former Director (Personnel Services), Naval Head Quarters, Indian Navy – Whole-time member Kavindra Sharma, Former Vice President (Consulting), L&T Infotech Limited – Whole-time member GAC 3: Kavita Bhatia, Scientist G and Joint Secretary rank officer in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology – Chairperson Sanjay Goel, Indian Railway Traffic Service (Retired) – Whole-time member Krishnagiri Ragothamarao Murali Mohan, Former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, IDBI Intech Limited – Whole-time member What role does the GAC play? Under the IT Rules, social media intermediaries like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp are required to have a Grievance Officer to whom users may complain about any violation of the Rules. In case this Grievance Officer is not able to satisfactorily resolve the complaint, the user can now, within 30…
