After fighting a month-long legal battle, Netflix has finally released its controversial documentary series, 'Bad Boy Billionaires' that showcases an episode each of the businessmen including Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, and Sahara India chief Subrata Roy who have committed alleged fraud.
All episodes except that of the founder of Satyam Computer Services, B Ramalinga Raju, have been released as Raju’s matter is still pending in Hyderabad court.
A petition was filed by Raju, who falsified the company accounts and committed a corporate fraud of Rs 7,000 crore. He was arrested on January 7, 2009.
Last month, the Hyderabad civil court had restricted the release of the documentary that was going to be released at noon on September 2. It faced legal issues after Mehul Choksi, whose name appears in the series, Roy and Raju approached courts seeking a stay on the docu-series saying it would affect their trials. The release was approved by a lower court in Bihar, on Saturday, after it lifted its stay order.
The sub Judge of the Araria Court stated that it was granting the stay in favor of Roy to balance out the loss to defendants, including their employees, directors, officers, associates, or any person acting under their authority restraining from releasing, "transmitting, distributing, exhibiting, performing or communicating to the public by any means or technology by audio or video performance of the impugned trailer of Bad Boy Billionaires using the name of Subrata Roy till the appearance of the defendant and filing show cause.”
Netflix had challenged the order of the court in Araria after it had asked the platform not to use Roy’s name. Even Choksi had approached the Delhi High Court saying that the documentary would slander his reputation showing images from his life.
Netflix had vindicated the allegations saying the Indian government can not ask to regulate content on online platforms.
The entertainment services provider also debated on the laws of freedom of speech and expression stating that“the series is like a documentary, referring to facts, which are widely discussed in the public domain and aren’t sub-judice.”
The Netflix docuseries reflects on the lives of four alleged business tycoon -Sahara India Pariwar chief Subrata Roy, Satyam Computers founder Ramalinga Raju, liquor baron Vijay Mallya, and diamond merchant Nirav Modi. Its description on Netflix says, “This investigative docuseries explores the greed, fraud and corruption that built up — and ultimately brought down — India’s most infamous tycoons.”
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