While Twitter allegedly targeted the Indian government, mentioning that they believe in “freedom of expression and individual right,” they operated without Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) as required under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, according to a report.
Before March 2019, more than six years after the law came into existence, Twitter Communications India Private Limited had not put in place any anti-sexual harassment policy to tackle the cases of sexual harassment within the organisation.
In 2019, the company issued a statement that mentioned that “The company is in the process of setting up the Internal Complaints Committee as required under the said act. Similarly, the company is in the process of establishing its anti-sexual harassment policy as per the provision of the said act.”
It is pertinent to mention that the violation of the ICC, can lead to imposition of a fine up to Rs 50,000 and twice the amount of fine for repetition of the same offence.
It is also pertinent to note that while the company’s filing for 2019-2020 mentioned that two instances of sexual complaint were filed by Twitter employees in Delhi and Bangalore, the company said they did not receive any complaint of sexual harassment during the FY under review (April 2019-March 2020).
Further, Twitter, in its response, has said, “Twitter does not tolerate sexual harassment at the workplace and has established an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in India to address sexual harassment complaints in accordance with Indian law. To date, the ICC has not received any formal complaints of this nature. We disclose this information in our annual filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, as required by law.
