The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, said on Thursday that the firm had not received official notice from the Indian government amid allegations of intense editorial control and persistent complaints about bias and inaccuracies on the platform.

A number of publications, including TechCrunch, reported on Tuesday that India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had questioned the encyclopedia’s brokerage status offered to tech platforms in India.

A Wikimedia spokesperson denied that it had received an official notification from the Indian government in the past two days and said the foundation “stands behind its volunteer community and core values, ensuring millions of people around the world have access to well-sourced information at no cost.”

The Indian ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The so-called query from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting follows a contentious case in the Delhi High Court, in which the judges called Wikipedia’s open editing feature “dangerous” and threatened to suspend its operations in India. The court is hearing a defamation case filed by news agency Asian News International that aims to identify Wikipedia contributors who allegedly called the news agency a “propaganda tool” for the Indian government.

Judge Navin Chawla had rejected Wikipedia’s request for additional time to respond due to its physical absence in India and warned that contempt proceedings would be initiated against the platform if it did not comply with orders to disclose user information. “If you do not want to comply with Indian regulations, do not operate in India,” the judge said.

Wikipedia argued that its volunteer editors must comply with its established policies regarding verifiable content and legal guidelines; but that defense has faced increasing scrutiny from Indian authorities concerned about the platform’s content moderation practices.

Nikhil Pahwa, editor of MediaNama and a leading voice on technology policy, questioned the legal basis for the government’s move, arguing that India’s IT law determines platform status by function rather than the number of editors.

“You can be a platform with one user/editor, or you can be a platform with a billion users/editors,” he said. wrote to x.

“Wikipedia volunteers carefully select information from trusted news sources and other reputable outside publications; “They do not add original content to the site,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “This approach allows Wikipedia to compile information from reliable sources. By citing all sources on the article pages, our commitment to transparency is demonstrated. Wikipedia articles are required to maintain an unbiased perspective in accordance with their writing policies. Volunteers from different origins and political views organize Wikipedia. This model supports Wikipedia reinforces that their articles offer a broad view of knowledge on a topic rather than any one perspective.”

Story updated with comment from Wikimedia.