NEW DELHI—An Indian court has summoned Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma in a case where a former employee in India alleges 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, citing security concerns, banned Alibaba’s UC News, UC Browser, and 59 other apps, mostly Chinese-developed, after a border clash between the two countries’ forces.
Civil Judge Sonia Sheokand of a district court in Gurugram, a satellite city of India’s capital New Delhi, has issued a summons for Alibaba, Jack Ma, and about a dozen other individuals or company units, asking them to appear in court in person or through a lawyer on July 29, court documents showed.
The judge has also sought written responses from the company and its executives within 30 days, according to the summons.
UC India said in a statement it had been “unwavering 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.”
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.
The Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement that the Chinese government has always requested Chinese companies to “carry out overseas cooperation on the basis of abiding by international rules and local laws.
“The Indian side should also provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies’ normal operations in India,” the statement said.
India’s IT ministry in New Delhi didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The court case is the latest hurdle for Alibaba in India after the Indian government’s app ban, following which UC Web has started laying off some staff in India.
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.
India has said it banned the 59 apps after it received “credible inputs” that such apps posed a threat to India’s sovereignty. Its IT minister said the decision was taken to safeguard citizens’ data and public order.
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.
One post from 2017 was headlined in Hindi: “2,000-rupee notes to be banned from midnight today.” Another headline on a 2018 post said: “Just now: War broke out between India and Pakistan,” and contained a description of firing across the disputed border between the countries.
Reuters could not independently verify the veracity of the claims in the filing. India did not ban its 2,000-rupee currency note, no war occurred between India and Pakistan in 2018, and there were no reported gun firings during the recent border clash.
