The District Court of Gurugram has issued summons to Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, among others, in a civil suit filed by an Ex-Employee for wrongful termination from the UC Web Mobile Company, said Lawyer Atul Ahlawat on Sunday.
Atul Ahlawat, further, said that they are yet to receive any response from the defendants.
Ahlawat said that "This is a civil suit for wrongful termination & my client, Pushpandra Singh Parmar, who was working as an Associate Director with the defendant number one company, UC Web Mobile Pvt Ltd, is seeking damages & compensation to the tune of Rs 2 crores. The civil judge at Gurugram district court has issued summons to all the defendants including Jack Ma, the founder & ex-director of group holding company Alibaba".
He further added that "The summons are returnable for July 29. They can appear through counsel or in person. We are waiting for July 29, we are yet to get their response," he further added.
However, Ahlawat, further said that the case assumed more importance because of some of the allegations, which according to him reveal that the Chinese company used to push the narrative of their country through their browsers & apps.
He said that "Although it is a civil suit which my client has filed against his ex-employers, it assumes a significant importance because the allegations which are contained in the civil suit are very serious and, if found true, are going to assume even greater importance. It shows us the modus operandi of the Chinese companies in India, while they are trying to push the narrative of their country (China) & of their communist party (CCP) they are harming the public interest in our country".
Ahlawat said that as per the company's own claims there are more than thirteen crore users/followers of UC News, UC Browser in India, & the fake news being run on such platforms affected the political narrative & often led to a misinformed public opinion being formed.
He said that "Our petition contains certain specific allegations wherein there were more than 1,550 words which were content-specific, & were used through a computer programme. Whenever anyone used to type these words they used to be highlighted & the app managers got to know about it. The content used to then go through a filter system".
He said that if the users typed words such as India-Pakistan war, 1999 Kargil the content which he would receive would be stories "which are favourable to the Chinese narrative, Chinese interests or even Pakistani interests, which are against the Indian interests. It was not content-neutral, like most of the other search engines are."
"If you type anything on UC News or UC Web so only those news, which was filtered through the computer program & computer applications, which were serving the Chinese narrative was given preference & only those were shown," he said.
India had recently banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including the widely-used social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, & Helo with a view of the threat to the nation's sovereignty & security.
The majority of the apps banned in the June 29 order were red-flagged by intelligence agencies over concerns that they were collecting user data & possibly also sending them "outside".
The Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet, & technology.
Jack Ma, its founder had stepped down as the executive chairman of the company, a decision which also coincided with his 55th birthday, in Sept 2019.
Source Link
