Razorpay added that the company had received a written order from the legal authorities under Section 91 CRPC and "are mandated to comply by the same as per the regulation under the provision of Indian law.
What is the Razorpay-AltNews case?
Last week (June 27), fact-checking media organisation AltNews co-founder Muhammad Zubair was arrested by the cops in Delhi in a case related to an “objectionable tweet" he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity. Zunair was then sent to judicial custody for 14 days. The prosecutor opposed his bail appeal, contending that a probe was underway into foreign donations he allegedly received, including Pakistan.
Additional public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava claimed that Zubair accepted payments through Razorpay from Pakistan, UAE, Syria, Singapore, and Australia. Delhi Police has also alleged that AltNews parent company Pravda Media also received more than ₹2 lakh in foreign funding.
AltNews claims Razorpay shared donor data with police
AltNews alleged that Razorpay had shared its donor data with the police without informing it. The fact-checking media website added that Razorpay had deactivated the account of AltNews on its donation platform following a request from the police and re-enabled it later.
AltNews said the donation platform had conveyed to them that their account was reactivated "after getting some clarity".
AltNews reiterated that only Indian bank accounts can make donations to it and foreign credit cards were never enabled in the Razorpay back-end.
"Therefore, the allegations of AltNews having received funds from foreign sources from whom we cannot receive donations are false," it said.
"While we look for alternatives, we will continue with Razorpay as the donation platform for now," AltNews said.
What Delhi Police saying?
Delhi Police said Pravda Media, under which AltNews operates, received over ₹2 lakh through various transactions wherein either the mobile phone number or the IP address was of foreign countries.
From the analysis of a reply received from Razorpay payment gateway, it was revealed that there were various transactions in which either the mobile phone number was outside India or the IP address was of foreign countries and cities, including Bangkok, Australia, Manama, North Holland, Singapore, Victoria, New York, England, Riyadh Region, Sharjah, Stockholm, Abu Dhabi, Washington, Kansas, New Jersey, Ontario, California, Texas, Lower Saxony, Bern, Dubai, Scotland, Delhi Police said. A total of ₹2,31,933 was received by Pravda Media through these transactions, it added.
During social media analysis, it was noticed that Twitter handles that supported Zubair and had tweeted in his support after his arrest were mostly from the middle eastern countries like the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait as well as countries like Pakistan, the statement said.
Police have invoked new provisions -- sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code and section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act -- against Zubair.
Earlier, a case was registered against him under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language, etc) and 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code).
