IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has confirmed that the message-sharing platform WhatsApp and its parent company Meta did not inform the government about their plans to exit their services in India.

He made the revelation while answering a question raised in the Rajya Sabha.

“[The] Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has shared that WhatsApp or Meta has not informed the government about any such plans," the Indian minister said in his written reply to the questions as quoted by The Times of India.

Ashwini Vaishnaw was answering a question raised by Congress leader Vivek Tankha about whether  WhatsApp was planning to shut its services in India amid the Centre's direction to share user details.

Earlier this year,  WhatsApp warned to shut down its services in India if it is asked to break encryption, citing the privacy of the users.

WhatsApp told this to the Delhi High Court challenging the amended IT rules.