{"id":3984,"date":"2020-07-27T13:31:42","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T06:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illume-emag.com\/?p=3984"},"modified":"2020-07-27T13:31:42","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T06:31:42","slug":"exclusive-alibaba-jack-ma-summoned-indian-court-former-employees-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/exclusive-alibaba-jack-ma-summoned-indian-court-former-employees-complaint\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Alibaba, Jack Ma summoned by Indian court on former employee’s complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – An Indian court has summoned Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma in a case in which a former employee in India says he was wrongfully fired after objecting to what he saw as censorship and fake news on company apps, documents seen by Reuters showed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The case comes weeks after India cited security concerns in banning Alibaba\u2019s UC News, UC Browser and 57 other Chinese apps after a clash between the two countries\u2019 forces on their border.<\/p>\n

Following the ban, which China has criticized, India sought written answers from all affected companies, including whether they censored content or acted for any foreign government.<\/p>\n

In court filings dated July 20 and previously not reported, the former employee of Alibaba\u2019s UC Web, Pushpandra Singh Parmar, alleges the company used to censor content seen as unfavourable to China and its apps UC Browser and UC News showcased false news \u201cto cause social and political turmoil\u201d.<\/p>\n

Civil Judge Sonia Sheokand of a district court in Gurugram, a satellite city of India\u2019s capital, New Delhi, has issued summons for Alibaba, Jack Ma and about a dozen individuals or company units, asking them to appear in court or through a lawyer on July 29, court documents showed.<\/p>\n

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The judge has also sought written responses from the company and its executives within 30 days, according to the summons.<\/p>\n

UC India said in a statement it had been \u201cunwavering in its commitment to the India market and the welfare of its local employees, and its policies are in compliance with local laws. We are unable to comment on ongoing litigation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alibaba representatives did not respond to requests for comment from the Chinese company or on behalf of Jack Ma.<\/p>\n

Parmar, who worked as an associate director at the UC Web office in Gurugram until October 2017 and is seeking $268,000 in damages, referred Reuters queries to his lawyer, Atul Ahlawat, who declined to comment saying the matter was sub judice.<\/p>\n

The court case is the latest hurdle for Alibaba in India after the Indian government\u2019s app ban, following which UC Web has started laying off some staff in India.<\/p>\n

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Before the apps were banned, the UC Browser had been downloaded at least 689 million times in India, while UC News had 79.8 million downloads, most during 2017 and 2018, data from analytics firm Sensor Tower showed.<\/p>\n

ALLEGATIONS IN COURT<\/h3>\n

India has said it banned the 59 apps after it received \u201ccredible inputs\u201d that such apps posed a threat to India\u2019s sovereignty. Its IT minister said the decision was taken to safeguard citizens\u2019 data and public order.<\/p>\n

In more than 200 pages of court filings, reviewed by Reuters, former employee Parmar included clippings of some posts showcased on the UC News app that he alleged were false.<\/p>\n

One post from 2017 was headlined in Hindi: \u201c2,000-rupee notes to be banned from midnight today\u201d. Another headline of a 2018 post said: \u201cJust now: War broke out between India and Pakistan\u201d and contained description of firing across the disputed border between the countries.<\/p>\n

Reuters could not independently verify the veracity of the claims in the court filing. India did not ban its 2,000-rupee currency note and no war occurred between India and Pakistan in 2018.<\/p>\n

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FILE PHOTO: Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, speaks during the launch of Alibaba’s office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia June 18, 2018. REUTERS\/Lai Seng Sin\/File Photo<\/em><\/div>\n
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The lawsuit also contains a \u201csensitive words list\u201d with key words in Hindi and English like \u201cIndia-China border\u201d and \u201cSino-India war\u201d that the court filing alleges were used by UC Web to censor content on its platforms in India.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to control any news related content to be published against China was automatically\/manually rejected by an audit system evolved for this purpose,\u201d the filing said.<\/p>\n

The Chinese Embassy in New Delhi and China\u2019s foreign ministry in Beijing, as well as India\u2019s IT ministry in New Delhi, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – An Indian court has summoned Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma in a case in which a former employee in India says he was wrongfully fired after objecting to what he saw as censorship and fake news on company apps, documents seen by Reuters showed. The case comes weeks after India […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[2185],"class_list":{"0":"post-3984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity-buzz","8":"tag-alibaba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}