Modi's office summons India telecom secretary over fake court orders
Telecom Secretary Amit Agrawal was called to explain how 129 betting sites were blocked on forged High Court orders, as police open a forgery inquiry.
India's telecom secretary was summoned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office on Saturday to explain how officials ordered internet providers to block more than 100 websites on the strength of court orders that turned out to be forged, two government officials with knowledge of the matter said.
Telecom Secretary Amit Agrawal is the most senior bureaucrat in the ministry that oversees telecom operators and internet providers. The two officials said he was called to appear and explain the lapse, cutting short a trip to another state. Agrawal and his ministry did not answer questions from Reuters, and Modi's office did not respond either.
The summons followed a Reuters report on Wednesday that telecom officials had directed internet providers to block 129 betting websites on the basis of fake High Court orders emailed to the ministry by people posing as lawyers. Online betting is illegal in India. The case has raised questions about safeguards in the country's content-takedown system, because a falsified court document could be used to block a legitimate website.
State police have opened a criminal investigation against unknown persons for forgery and cheating. On Friday, Reuters reported that the ministry had begun an internal investigation and that police had asked for ministry records.
The two High Court orders that Reuters identified as fake, confirmed as not genuine by police and the court registry, carried fabricated court logos and seals and a fake QR code. They sat on the Department of Telecommunications website for months, alongside correspondence showing officials instructing internet providers to remove the sites. On Saturday, one of the two orders was still accessible on the government site. The other had been removed.
One of the government officials said the enforcement had been handled lower down the chain: "The action taken by the Department of Telecommunications against betting accounts was carried out through the relevant field officers."
The case has drawn attention to the spread of fabricated legal material. India's Supreme Court in July set aside a tribunal's orders that rested on judgments that do not exist, and a US judge recently disqualified lawyers over invented citations.
How the reports differ
All four outlets led with the same fact, that Modi's office summoned the telecom secretary, and all traced it to two unnamed government officials. Arab News framed its headline around "website takedowns" and used its standfirst to flag both the internal inquiry and a search of police records, while Reuters and CNA put the fake court orders in the headline itself. Bangkok Post led its headline with the takedowns rather than the summons, and it and Arab News carried the fullest published account, including the figure of 129 blocked betting sites and the detail that one forged order was still on a government website on Saturday while another had been removed.
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