Govt gives 48 hrs to banned websites, apps to prove genuineness: Official

Only days after banning several digital lending websites and apps, the IT ministry has given 48 hours to these banned websites and apps to prove their genuineness. A senior official from the ministry said that the ban has been imposed on the platforms because their businesses were not genuine.  

The government last week ordered blocking of 232 mobile applications operated by overseas entities, including Chinese, for being involved in betting, gambling and unauthorised loan services. 

“They have been given 48 hours under the rule to submit documents. The decision will be taken based on their presentation. It is going on now,” another senior official told PTI.  

On Saturday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued blocking based on an emergency request issued by a nodal officer of the home ministry, against 138 betting and gambling websites and 94 loan apps that were engaging in illegal money laundering and posing a threat to financial security of the country. 

In the Fintech category, firms such as LazyPay, IndiaBulls Home Loans and Kissht were listed among the blocked websites. MeitY issued orders to block lazypay.in, which is a subsidiary of Dutch investment firm Prosus. Indiabullshomeloans.com is operated by housing finance company Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd, while Kissht.com is operated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)-registered non-banking financial company (NBFC) ONEMi Technology Solutions Private Limited.  

The other websites in the block list include buddyloan.com, cashtm.in, kreditbee.en.aptoide.com, faircent.com, true-balance.en.uptodown.com, and mpokket.en.aptoide.com. Fintech firm mPokket, however, said that an app impersonating it has been blocked by the government and it has no link with the blocked platform. 

“The domain in the list issued by MeiTY this week, mpokket.en.aptoide.com, is a clear instance of impersonation and has no affiliation with mPokket whatsoever. Aptoide is a third-party app store with which we have no official or unofficial partnership,” mPokket said in a statement.  

According to a January 12 report by the Software Freedom Law Centre, India, the government has blocked 55,607 URLs between January 2015 and September 2022. Of these, 26,474 URLs, or 47.6% were blocked under section 69A of the Information Technology Act, in which the government can block content where it believes that this content threatens the security, sovereignty, integrity or defence of India, 46.8% for copyright infringement, and the remaining on charges including obscenity, pornography, and material related to child sexual abuse.