Alibaba, Jack Ma Summoned by Indian Court on Former Employee's Complaint

HIGHLIGHTS - 

1. India has sought a written reply from all the affected agencies

2. Alibaba representatives failed to answer an invitation for comment

3. The court case is that the latest hurdle for Alibaba in India

An Indian court has summoned Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma in a very case during which a former employee in India said he was wrongly fired for objecting to what he saw as censorship and faux news within the company's apps, in keeping with documents shown by Reuters.

The lawsuit comes just weeks after India raised security concerns over the banning of Alibaba's UC News, UC Browser and 57 other Chinese applications following clashes between the 2 countries' armies on their border.

Following China's criticism of the ban, India sought a written response from all affected organizations, including whether or not they had censored the content or acted on behalf of a far off government.

In a lawsuit filed in court on July 20 and not previously reported, Puspandra Singh Parmar, a former employee of Alibaba's UC Web, alleged that the corporate used censorship of content identified as unfavorable to China which its apps UC Browser and UC News spread false news "because social And political unrest ".

Civil Judge Sonia Sheokand Alibaba of the District Court in Gurugram, a satellite city in capital of India, has summoned Alibaba, Jack Ma and a couple of dozen individuals or entities to look in court or be questioned by a lawyer, court documents show July 29.

The judge also sought a written response from the agency and its officials within 30 days, in step with the summons investigation.

UC India said in an exceedingly statement that it absolutely was "committed to the Indian market and to the welfare of local workers and its policies are in compliance with local law. We cannot touch upon the continuing litigation."

Alibaba representatives didn't answer an invitation for comment from the Chinese company or Jack Ma.

Parmar, who worked as an associate director at the UC web office in Gurugram until October 2017 and is seeking $ 2.68lakh (about Rs 2 crore) in compensation, Reuters declined to touch upon the bear on his lawyer, Atul Ahlawat. There was a sub-trial.

The court case is that the latest hurdle in Alibaba's case after the Indian government banned the app, after which UC Web started peeling off some workers in India.

Prior to banning the apps, UC Browser was downloaded a minimum of 689 million times in India, with 79.8 million downloads in UC News, the foremost between 2017 and 2018, in line with data from the analysis firm Censor Tower.

Complaint in court

India has said it's banned 59 apps after receiving "credible input" and threatening India's sovereignty. Its IT minister said the choice was taken to guard citizens' data and public order.

The quite 200-page court filing reviewed by Reuters included former employee Parmar's clippings of a number of the posts published on the UC News app, which he alleged was a lie.

A post in 2017 was headlined in Hindi: "Rs 2,000 notes are banned from midnight today". Another headline in a very 2018 post reads: "Right now: War between India and Pakistan has started" and describes the firing across the disputed border between the 2 countries.

Reuters couldn't independently verify the veracity of the claim when it absolutely was filed in court. India has not banned its Rs 2,000 currency notes and in 2018 there was no war between India and Pakistan.

The lawsuit contains a "list of sensitive words" in Hindi and English, together with key words like "India-China border" and "Sino-Indian war" that UC Web wont to censor content on its platform in India.

The filing states, "Any news published against China was automatically / manually rejected by an evolutionary audit system intended to manage this."

The Chinese embassy in Indian capital and therefore the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing, in addition as India's information ministry in capital of India, failed to answer requests for comment.