NEW DELHI: The Allahabad High Court‘s Lucknow branch has directed the Department of Information Technology and Department of Technology to ensure that websites like Google, Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo fully comply with Rules 3 and 11 of the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011.

The bench of Justice Uma Nath Singh and Justice V K Dixit issued the direction on a petition by IPS officer Amitabh Thakur and social activist Nutan Thakur.

Rule 3 requires web service providers to specify the matters which cannot be uploaded or transmitted through them, while Rule 11 makes it incumbent on them to publish the names of their grievance officers and their contact details on their website.

The petitioners had earlier filed a petition in the same matter and on 9 May 2012, Justice Devi Prasad Singh and Justice Saeed Uz-zaman Siddiqui had ordered for complete compliance of the two rules. The petitioners filed this second petition because the earlier order was not being adhered to by the web service providers.