Netflix Suspended Show Release Following Araria District Court Order
Mumbai:
Netflix partially launched its long-awaited series about four Indian moguls facing fraud charges after a state court lifted an injunction over the weekend, a lawyer representing Netflix said Monday.
The documentary series “Bad Boy Billionaires: India” about liquor mogul Vijay Mallya, Subrata Roy of the Sahara group, IT executive Ramalinga Raju and jeweler Nirav Modi premiered last month.
Netflix, the world’s largest streaming service, suspended the show’s launch following an order from the Araria district court in Bihar, where the Sahara group argued it would damage Roy’s reputation.
Late on Saturday, the court lifted the injunction, said Amit Shrivastava, an attorney for Netflix. He declined to comment further and it was not immediately clear why the court struck down his earlier order. The official order has yet to be published.
Netflix did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Sahara also did not respond. Roy is currently out on bail, as a court ordered him to return billions of dollars to investors in a scheme that was deemed illegal. Roy has denied wrongdoing in the case and his lawyer has said that he has already paid the investors.
Some Netflix shows in India have faced legal challenges and police complaints for obscenity or hurting religious sentiments.
The ongoing legal dispute is among the most significant Netflix has faced in India, one of its key growth markets.
The broadcast company had argued that stopping the launch of the show “freezes freedom of expression” and hurts the company financially, Reuters reported.
On Monday, Netflix made three of the four episodes of the series available on its app for viewers in India. The episode focusing on Raju was not available.
Raju, who was charged with a billion dollar accounting fraud more than a decade ago, obtained a separate injunction on his television broadcast from a court in South India. The case will be heard later on Monday, Raju’s lawyer A Venkatesh told Reuters.
The other two moguls, Modi and Mallya, face extradition attempts and are currently in the UK. Both have denied any wrongdoing.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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