Gurugram district court summons Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, others for wrongful firing of employee

Gurugram (Haryana) [India], July 26 : The Gurugram district court has issued summons to Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, among others, in a civil suit filed by a former employee for wrongful termination from the UC Web Mobile Company, said lawyer Atul Ahlawat on Sunday.
Ahlawat, further, said that they are yet to receive any response from the defendants.
"This is a civil suit for wrongful termination and 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 and 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 and ex-director of group holding company Alibaba," Ahlawat said.
"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.
Ahlawat, however, further stated 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 and apps.
"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) and of their communist party (CCP) they are harming the public interest in our country," he said.
He said that as per the company's own claims there are more than 13 crore users/followers of UC News, UC Browser in India, and the fake news being run on such platforms affected the political narrative and often led to a misinformed public opinion being formed.
"Our petition contains certain specific allegations wherein there were more than 1,550 words which were content-specific, and were used through a computer programme. Whenever anyone used to type these words they used to be highlighted and the app managers got to know about it. The content used to then go through a filter system," he said.
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 and computer applications, which were serving the Chinese narrative was given preference and only those were shown," Ahlawat said.
India had recently banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including the widely-used social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, and Helo with a view of the threat to the nation's sovereignty and 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 and possibly also sending them "outside".
The Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet, and 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 September 2019.