HC raps MHA for ‘distorted’ paperwork in Reuters journalist’s OCI case

Hearing the case of Reuters journalist Raphael Satter, whose Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card was revoked in December 2023, the Delhi High Court reportedly pulled up the Ministry of Home Affairs’ counsel for inadequate paperwork. According to Bar and Bench, the judge said, “Your officers have completely distorted it.” 

Satter’s OCI card was revoked in December 2023 by the MHA for allegedly “practising journalism without proper permission” and for work that was “maliciously creating adverse and biased opinion against Indian institutions in the international arena”. 

On Wednesday, speaking on behalf of the petitioner Satter, according to Bar and Bench, lawyer Karuna Nundy said, “My journalism has been in the public interest, for Indian citizens and has received awards for it. In the counter affidavit I am made aware that there was one article written seven years ago, that is referring to third party alienation of user data in an app, that they have now taken objection to after seven years. This is speculative. They gave me three dates, but on two of the dates, I did not publish any article.”

The counsel for the MHA reportedly presented the three articles in a sealed cover to the judge. These were allegedly published on “26 March 2018, 9 June 2022, and 28 July 2022,” which the government claimed were aimed at “creating a biased opinion about India in the international arena,” according to The Sunday Guardian.

When the judge opened the sealed cover, he observed, “There is nothing in this. Where are the other articles? There is only one article here. Your dates are all jumbled up…Your SCN (show cause notice) is silent that he has written some objectionable article. At least tell him. Your officers have completely distorted it.”

Another key point of contention was that Satter had allegedly attended the “Nullcon cybersecurity conference held in Goa on 9–10 September 2022” without seeking prior permission from the Indian government, as required under the 2021 OCI guidelines, according to The Sunday Guardian. As per these guidelines, OCI cardholders are mandated to seek special permission before engaging in any journalistic work.   

Responding to these allegations, according to Bar and Bench, Nundy said, “They have cited a wrong conference, I did not attend the conference, I did not write about the conference...I did not attend the conference since I was not given permission, and I could not report on it. I converted the trip to a personal one. My colleague was attending the conference, and I had only gone to pick her up."

The next hearing date for this matter has been scheduled for December 18, according to Bar and Bench. 

In November 2023, Satter’s investigation for Reuters, titled “How an Indian startup hacked the world,” claimed that Appin, a New Delhi-based information technology firm, according to The Print, had allegedly become “a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe.”

According to The Print, Appin founders Anuj Khare and Rajat Khare had denied the charges against the company.

Satter claimed, according to The Guardian, that he had received multiple threats from people associated with the company, including one that alluded to potential diplomatic action "unless I abandoned my reporting”. 

A month after Reuters published Satter’s report, he reportedly received a letter from the MHA notifying him that they had revoked his OCI card, cutting him off from his family in India. On the same day, he was informed that his OCI card had been revoked, The Guardian reported that a court in Delhi “issued a temporary injunction against his Reuters report, ordering it to be taken down.” However, the report was published again 10 months after the court lifted its order.    

Satter’s legal team attempted to contact the central government to seek specific details on how his journalistic work was deemed a threat to India’s national security. Despite his attempts, he received no response for a year, according to The Print. So, he decided to take the government to court, and the first hearing was held in the Delhi High Court earlier this year.   

Satter isn’t the first journalist whose OCI card was revoked by the government. According to this Human Rights Watch report, as of January 2024, 25 foreign reporters had their OCI cards revoked. Among the most high-profile of these revocation cases was that of Aatish Tasser, the journalist and writer, who had written a cover story for Time magazine critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi following the 2019 elections. His OCI card was revoked in November 2019. 

Besides Taseer, Vanessa Dougnac, a French national and an OCI cardholder who had been living in India for more than two decades, had her work permit suspended and was forced to leave the country. In March this year, Vanessa issued a statement saying that the Indian government had authorised her to “resume my profession as a foreign correspondent” based in New Delhi after “two and a half years of being denied permission to undertake journalistic activities”. 

Similarly, Angad Singh, an American-Sikh journalist and OCI cardholder, was deported in 2022 following his documentary about the CAA-NRC protests. 

Holding an OCI card allows foreign nationals of Indian origin (and others of certain related categories) to obtain a “lifelong, multi-purpose visa” that enables them to visit and stay in India indefinitely.

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