Indian court summons Alibaba, founder Ma over employee complaint

An Indian court has summoned Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma after a former employee in India said he was wrongfully fired after objecting to what he saw as censorship and fake news on company apps, documents seen by the Reuters news agency showed.

The case comes weeks after India cited security concerns in banning Alibaba’s UC News, UC Browser and 57 other Chinese apps after a clash in June between the two countries’ forces on their border.

Following the ban, which China has criticised, India sought written answers from all affected companies, including responses that addressed whether they censored content or acted for any foreign government.

In court filings dated July 20 and previously not reported, the former employee of Alibaba’s UC Web, Pushpendra 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 “to cause social and political turmoil”.

Civil Judge Sonia Sheokand of a district court in Gurugram, a satellite city of India’s capital, New Delhi, has issued summonses 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.

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”.

Alibaba representatives did not respond to requests for comment by the Chinese company or on behalf of Ma.

The Chinese Embassy in New Delhi and China’s foreign ministry in Beijing, as well as India’s IT ministry in New Delhi, also did not respond to requests for comment.

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 or the subject of the trial.

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.

Court allegations

India has said it banned the 59 apps after it received “credible inputs” that they 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 ($27) notes to be banned from midnight today”. Another headline of a 2018 post said: “Just now: War broke out between India and Pakistan” and contained descriptions of firing across the disputed border between the countries.

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.

The lawsuit also contains a “sensitive words list” with key words in Hindi and English like “India-China border” and “Sino-India war” that the court filing alleges were used by UC Web to censor content on its platforms in India.

“In order to control any news related content to be published against China was automatically/manually rejected by an audit system evolved for this purpose,” the filing said.