A US based journalist working with the Reuters news agency has sued the Indian government for unilaterally cancelling his Indian overseas citizenship (OCI) after the publication of a report critical of a prominent Indian businessman.
In a letter to Raphael Satter in early December 2023, informing him of the cancellation of his OCI card, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs accused him of producing work that “maliciously” tarnished India’s reputation.
The letter alleged that Satter, who covers cybersecurity for Reuters, had practised journalism "without proper permission” and that his work had been "maliciously creating adverse and biased opinion against Indian institutions in the international arena."
Satter denied ever practising journalism in India and stressed that he had only travelled to the country to meet his family members. A cancellation of his OCI card will prevent the journalist from travelling to India to meet his family.
According to a report by The Guardian, Satter's lawyers pointed out that the revocation of his OCI card coincided with a defamation case filed against him for his report on the Indian cybersecurity company Appin and its co-founder Rajat Khare.
Interestingly, on the same day that Satter received the notice of the OCI cancellation, a Delhi judge ordered his story to be temporarily taken down. It was restored 10 months later.
In an investigative report for Reuters, titled 'How an Indian startup hacked the world', Satter exposed the workings of Appin- a startup company that started as a cybersecurity training firm- alleging it had become “a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe.”
According to Satter's report, soon after starting a digital security consultancy to help Indian organizations protect themselves online, Appin had set up a team of hackers out of a subsidiary called the 'Appin Security Group' to help Indian government officials break into computers and emails for spying.
"Soon Appin was working with the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s external intelligence service; and the Intelligence Bureau, the country’s domestic spy agency, according to the two former executives, one former Appin hacker and a former senior Indian intelligence official," the report noted.
"In 2009, Appin boasted to prospective customers that it was serving India’s military, its Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), an Indian agency roughly equivalent to America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), emails show," the report further said.
However, Rajat Khare's US representative, the law firm Clare Locke, has rejected any association between its client and the cyber-mercenary business, stressing that Khare “has never operated or supported, and certainly did not create, any illegal ‘hack for hire’ industry in India or anywhere else.”
According to The Guardian, Satter said that he had received threats from individuals associated with the company during his investigation into Appin and Rajat Khare. One of them "alluded to potential ‘diplomatic action’ unless I abandoned my reporting,” he said.
"The petitioner and his employer, Reuters, began receiving threats from individuals linked to a company called Appin, which has hacked organisations in India and abroad," said Satter’s court petition.
Reuters is not the first to be allegedly targetted by Khera for their reportage on his company. According to an investigative report by Reporters Without Borders, at least 15 media outlets investigating Appin have received legal notices and five, including The New Yorker and the Sunday Times have been subjected to legal proceedings.
"The magnitude of these gag lawsuits — known as strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) — is unprecedented," the RWB report noted.
“If it becomes known that a powerful person can use the Indian court to strike down articles all over the world, everybody will do it. So it's a big deal [...] and if they succeed, they'll do it everywhere,” the report cited a source as saying.
The Narendra Modi-led BJP government has cancelled more than 100 OCI cards since it came to power in 2014. Satter's case against the cancellation of his citizenship card will be heard by a Delhi court on May 22.
In a statement to The Guardian, Satter stressed that the Indian government’s decision to cancel his OCI was a “mistake or on a misunderstanding.”
He stated that the decision had “effectively cut me off from members of my family and a country I hold in great affection and respect” and explained that he had decided to go to court after not receiving any response to his appeal to the government for more than a year.
“I am confident that, once the integrity of my journalism is demonstrated before the Indian courts and the true and correct facts are brought to the fore, the ministry of home affairs will see fit to restore my OCI card,” he said.