On Friday, The Supreme Court requested the RBI to give a response to an application that will implead it as a party in seeking a matter directive to WhatsApp so it would comply with the data localization norms for providing payment services in India. Both Justice Vineet Saran and Justice RF Nariman hand out the notice to the RBI on an NGO impleadment application, CASC (Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change, who filed a case in the court as they claimed that WhatsApp did not comply with India’s Central Banks circular.

The norms are related to storing of those payments that are data related within India, WhatsApp has over 200 million users in India alone.

The bench said on March 5: “Issue notice on the application for impleadment of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as respondent.”

The high-court on January 14 allowed advocate Virag Gupta to file an application that will implead the RBI as a party in the said case.

Tushar Mehta the Solicitor General said that the RBI was really needed to be added as a party in the case as the issue pertains data localisation.

The NGO required a way to restrain the messaging app from continuing its payment services until it has fully complied with the provisions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

WhatsApp told the high-court that an officer has been appointed by them for India.

The NGO said that the officer that is appointed in the USA which is “preposterous and against the sovereignty of India”.

In the appeal, the NGO referred to the IT Rules of 2011 and IT (reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011 where the provision that is made for the appointment of the said officer.

In one affidavit, they said that it would be a paradox if the data localization norms that are used in India but companies are granted to have data officers in the United States of America.

Last year on August 27, the High-Court agreed to check the plea that said WhatsApp is not complying with the Indian Laws and the provision for appointing their grievance officer.

According to reports, WhatsApp has nearly 200 million users in India alone, and around 1 million people are currently testing their payment services. India is currently one of the biggest bases for WhatsApp, the app alone has 1.5 billion users in the whole world.

In the request, the CASC said that in order to open a bank account here in India, a person is required to comply with the KYC norms that are laid by the RBI and other formalities.

The plea said: “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.”

It added: “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 check.”

The plea also said that the company is not complying with the laws of their country and its tax implementations, but the main thing is that it is being used by almost everyone, may the person be a normal civilian or a judge in the high court.

The plea said that a user has a number on WhatsApp but the platform itself has no number which users can contact them if there is any grievance redressal.