Mumbai Police send notices to 24 X users who shared Sabeer Bhatia documentary

Mumbai Police have sent legal notices to 24 account holders on X (formerly Twitter) who shared a controversial documentary posted by tech entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia. The notices were issued on October 18, a few days after the controversy over the documentary began.

The documentary is alleged to make false and defamatory claims about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani. The controversy arose over this.

The notice states that the cyber police received a formal complaint. According to the complaint, several X accounts posted highly objectionable content targeting a large business group. The links given in the notices led to Bhatia's X account.

According to the notice, the content contains false, misleading and defamatory statements and allegations against the company. These were spread without any factual or legal basis and caused continuing damage to the company's reputation, goodwill and public image. Police say posting such content violates the platform's guidelines and is a punishable offence under Section 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and Section 356 (defamation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

The notices asked the platform and the account holders to review the objectionable posts immediately and remove them or disable access to them.

Several account holders deleted the video clips. Some others openly shared copies of the police notice on their handles. They alleged that the police had overstepped and called the action wrong.

Bhatia is an Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Hotmail, the first free web-based email service, in 1996. Speaking about his own notice, he said, "Mumbai Police asked me to remove some highly objectionable tweets. I complied and removed them."

Bhatia went on to say, "This 'highly objectionable' tweet only pointed to alleged corruption at the highest level of power." In his view, the police found exposing corruption more objectionable than the corruption itself.

He asked, "When pointing to wrongdoing becomes a bigger crime than the wrongdoing itself, whom exactly is the law protecting?"

Bhatia also said, "I regret to tell the good people of India that the government is suppressing their fundamental right to freedom of speech. This government is no longer of the people, by the people, or for the people."

He wrote, "I am deeply disappointed. In a country of 1.45 billion people, citizens are afraid to speak up about what they see. When fear has silenced people, how can anyone hope to improve India?" Bhatia said, "When telling the truth requires courage, no country can progress."