Razorpay shared donor data with police, claims Alt News

NEW DELHI: Fact-checking website Alt News on Tuesday alleged that payment gateway Razorpay had shared its donor data with the police without informing it.

In a statement, Razorpay, without referring to the specific allegation of Alt News, said that it was mandated to comply with the written order from legal authorities under the provisions of the law.

Razorpay had deactivated the account of Alt News on its donation platform following a request from the police and re-enabled it later.

Alt News said the donation platform had conveyed to them that their account was reactivated "after getting some clarity". "It has not been specified by them as to what this clarity is," the fact-checking website said. It alleged that Razorpay had handed over Alt News donor data to the police.

"This was done without informing us, or without even a preliminary investigation of any violation on the part of Alt News," it said.

Delhi Police is probing the donations received by Alt News and has arrested its co-founder Mohammed Zubair.

Razorpay did not refer to the charges levelled by Alt News and said it was mandated to comply with the requirements of the law.

"We had received a written order from the legal authorities under Section 91 of the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) and we are mandated to comply with the same as per the regulation under the provisions of Indian law," the fintech platform said.

"We will continue to hold the highest standard of data security, defend our customers at all times and also continue to abide by the laws and regulations of India," Razorpay said.

Alt News 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 Alt News 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," Alt News said.