The popularity of indigenous personal messaging app Arattai seems to have reached the Supreme Court. When a petitioner approached the court about restoration of her blocked WhatsApp account, the judges not only dismissed her request but also suggested Arattai as an alternative.
The petitioner Dr. Raman Kundra is a doctor and claimed via her lawyer Senior Advocate Mahalaxmi Pavani that she had been using WhatsApp for the last 10 to 12 years and it was essential for her to communicate with her clients.
The doctor had filed a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution claiming that her fundamental rights had been violated by WhatsApp. The complainant claimed that her account was blocked on September 13 by WhatsApp and after seeking a review, she was told that it would continue to be blocked.
The bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta told the petitioner that access to private digital platforms like WhatsApp was not guaranteed under the Constitution and users must comply with the policies of the platform in order to be entitled to its services. They refused to entertain any claims that the action by WhatsApp amounted to violation of free speech and advised the petitioner to address the problem via appropriate regulatory or civil channels.
“What is your fundamental right to have access to WhatsApp?” the bench said.
“There are other communication applications, you can use them. Recently, there’s this indigenous app called Arattai…use that. Make In India!” Justice Mehta noted.
Zoho’s Rise in India:
While Arattai has been on the market for close to four years, the app has only recently gained popularity on the market with the government’s push for adoption of India-made apps. The app which is developed by Zoho Corp has crossed 7.5 million overall downloads and is amongst the fastest growing apps, topping the charts among top free apps on App Store and Google Play Store.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu in a post on X (formerly Twitter) about the Arattai app said, “This is what I told our Arattai team yesterday: all of you have worked hard for over 5 years without expecting that the product would ever take off. Allow neither praise nor criticism nor fame to distract you, resolutely stay the course. That is our mindset.”
