Netflix India India MHA Investigation: American streaming giant, Netflix is under investigation in India. According to a government email reviewed by a newswire, Netflix has allegations of visa violations, racial discrimination, tax evasion, and other business practice irregularities.
This investigation of the popular OTT platform Netflix, got revealed through an email, that was sent by an official with the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) of India's Home Ministry, Deepak Yadav to Netflix's former director of business and legal affairs for India, Nandini Mehta on 20th July.
The email stated, “This is regarding visa and tax violations concerns regarding the business practices of Netflix in India. We have received certain details in this regard w.r.t (with respect to) the stated company's conduct, visa violation, illegal structures, tax evasion and other malpractices including incidents of racial discrimination that company has been engaged in while conducting its business in India.”
In the email, the Indian Government asked her to provide “details/documents” that are related to the investigation as she was the former legal executive at the company. Nandini Mehta had worked at Netflix from the year 2018 to 2020.
Nandini Mehta welcomed the Indian investigation and said that she hopes the authorities make their findings public but she did not elaborate on the allegations made by the government further.
In the email, Nandini said that she has been pursuing a lawsuit against Netflix for alleged wrongful termination as well as racial and gender discrimination in the US. Netflix denied all these charges.
Netflix’s spokesperson said that the company did not know about the investigation. He said, “unaware of an investigation by the Indian government.”
In the email of the officer, the data shows growing scrutiny of Netflix in India. This streaming giant has almost around 10 million users and this is considered as the growth market where the company can target 1.4 billion people in the nation.
Over the passing years, Netflix, the US streaming giant has created more local content that featured Bollywood actors. Netflix has also faced criticism in India by the users who find their content insensitive. Recently, it was also forced to add certain disclaimers to the Indian series IC 814: The Kandahar hijack after social media outrage and government anger over the content.