Netflix releases three episodes of ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’ amid legal row
The latest court case is one of the many controversies Netflix has been embroiled in, since its entry into the Indian market in 2016
PremiumAmerican streaming service Netflix has released three episodes of its four-part controversial documentary web series Bad Boy Billionaires: India in the midst of a legal row. A Reuters report said the show about the country’s prominent entrepreneurs, liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya, Subrata Roy of the Sahara group, IT executive Ramalinga Raju and jeweller Nirav Modi that had been set for release last month, was suspended after an order from the Araria district court in the eastern Bihar state, where the Sahara group argued it would damage Roy’s reputation.
“The court lifted this injunction on Saturday, Amit Shrivastava, a lawyer for Netflix said. Shrivastava declined further comment and it was not immediately clear why the court had overturned its previous order," the report added.
Sahara had said in a statement that the documentary was “misleading", and that it was “depicted through some disgruntled people who hold personal grudges against Sahara".
Diamond merchant Mehul Choksi had also filed a petition against the release of the documentary and demanded for a pre-screening. His plea, however, was dismissed by a single judge panel of the Delhi High Court.
Netflix declined to comment on the story. The Reed Hastings-owned platform has not released the episode on Satyam Computers’ Raju yet. Microblogging site Twitter has been flooded with memes and comments around the show, many praising the exceptional journalism that exposed these cases of corruption.
“Has anyone been watching Bad Boy Billionaires on Netflix? Watch the Subrata Roy episode for Sharat Pradhan. He reminds us of what dedicated journalism is about," veteran TV anchor Vir Sanghvi tweeted.
Journalist Arup Roychoudhury said the realisation while watching Bad Boy Billionaires is that the 2000s really was the decade of Indian excess.
“Our middle class-driven consumption economy never had it so good. Things started going south from 2008 onwards eh? We will probably never feel or recapture that decade again," he tweeted.
The latest court case is one of the many controversies Netflix has been embroiled in, since its entry into the Indian market in 2016. In 2018, a Congress party politician from the city of Kolkata had lodged a police complaint against Netflix and actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui over two contentious scenes in the service’s first India original Sacred Games that allegedly insulted former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
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