PTI, NEW DELHI: Instant messaging app WhatsApp Friday told the Supreme Court that it is conducting a trial run of its payment service and will comply with RBI norms on data localisation before launching the full service.
The trial run is likely to be completed by July end this year, it said.
A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran was hearing a plea filed by an NGO, Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC), which has claimed that WhatsApp has not fully complied with RBI’s circular which prescribed data localisation norms.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Arvind Datar, appearing for the messenger app owned by US-based Facebook, told the bench that they are only having a trial run which is likely to be completed by July and it will not launch payments services without fully complying with RBI norms.
“We cannot launch the product without complying with the norms,” Sibal said.
Advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for the NGO, said that WhatsApp was allowed to run the trial of its payments services with one million users.
Relying on the Reserve Bank of India’s circular of April 6, 2018, he said that trial data of users cannot be allowed to be kept outside India.
“This may be violative of permission granted by National Payment Corporations of India (NPCI) to Whatsapp,” he said.
Sibal said there was no formal agreement between WhatsApp and NPCI till now.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said that WhatsApp was not complying with data localisation norms which is evident from the affidavit filed by the RBI.
To this, the bench said that if norms laid down by RBI are not followed by Whatsapp, then it can be prosecuted.
“Don’t worry our arms are long enough. They cannot escape the law,” it said and added that the issue requires detailed hearing and listed the matter in July.
On February 1, the apex court had sought response from RBI on the plea of NGO.
On January 14, the top court had allowed the NGO to implead RBI has party in the case.
In its petition, the NGO has sought direction to restrain the instant messaging platform from proceeding with its payment service unless it fully complied with the provisions of the RBI.
The Centre and WhatsApp had earlier told the court that a grievance officer for India has been appointed by the instant messaging service company.
However, the NGO has claimed that grievance officer has been appointed in the United States of America, which is “preposterous and against the sovereignty of India”.
