Razorpay on AltNews donor data: Handed over data after receiving official notice

Payments gateway Razorpay has reacted to AltNews' statement that said the payments platform shared its donor data with the police, stating that it responded to an official notice.

According to news sources, A Razorpay spokesperson told, "We received an official written notice from police authorities under Section 91 of the Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973 which we complied with by sharing the data. We are mandated to comply with the same as per the regulation under the provisions of the law."

"We tried reaching out to the company [AltNews] but did not receive any response and hence could not inform them before sharing the data or deactivating the account for a brief period on July 4," the spokesperson added.

Under Section 91 of the CrPC, any court or any officer in charge of a police station can seek data that is deemed important for any ongoing investigation.

On July 4, fact-checking platform AltNews tweeted a statement saying Razorpay has disabled its account, informing users as donations that people were attempting to make weren't going through. Sometime later, the account was enabled and many took to Twitter to share that donations are going through.

Razorpay founder Shashank Kumar takes over as MD, former Amazon executive Murali B new CTO

Following AltNews' statement, Razorpay issued a clarification on July 4 saying, "The merchant account was deactivated from the Razorpay platform temporarily, as a safety precaution, during the preliminary investigation by the authorities. Following clarity on the issue, we have unblocked and reactivated the account. We have extended our full cooperation to the authorities in the investigation and will continue to do so, as needed."

"Razorpay is a trusted company and we will always ensure transactions on the platform are safe and compliant with all laws and regulations."