Grover has been involved in a legal dispute with BharatPe since January 2022, when claims of financial irregularities first appeared. Grover was fired from the organisation in March of last year. On Wednesday, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) filed a first information report or FIR against Ashneer Grover, the former managing director of BharatPe, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, and other members of their family, including Deepak Gupta, Suresh Jain, and Shwetank Jain.
The FIR has been registered against the involved parties under eight sections of serious cognizable criminal offences, including 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by banker, merchant, or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will etc), 120B (criminal conspiracy), among others.
“The complaint was received at EOW, and an investigation has been done into the claims made against suspected individuals. Prima-facie offences are punishable under Sections 406/408/409/420/467/468/471/120B IPC (Indian penal code) is made out from the substance of the complaint and the investigation thus far, according to the FIR copy.
Grover was the target of five lawsuits over the previous six months. Following the appearance of claims of financial irregularities in January 2022, he has been involved in a legal dispute with BharatPe. Grover was fired from the organisation in March of last year.
A criminal case was made against Grover and his family in December 2022 by a Delhi-based fintech startup, alleging fraud of 81.28 crores, criminal breach of trust, conspiracy, cheating, forgery, and destruction of evidence. In the same month, BharatPe also filed a civil lawsuit with the Delhi High Court, requesting that Grover and his family pay over 88.67 crores in damages under a number of different headings.
It had made an arbitration claim in Singapore to get Grover’s restricted shares (1.4%) back and bar him from claiming founder status. Koladiya filed a lawsuit against Grover in January 2019 to retrieve the shares that were transferred in December 2018.
Shashvat Nakrani sued Grover over “unpaid shares”.
“…The registration of the FIR is a step in the right direction which unearths various suspicious transactions made by the family for their personal pecuniary gains. This FIR will now enable Law enforcement agencies to investigate deeper into criminality and bring the culprits to books. We have full faith in our country’s judicial and law enforcement systems and are optimistic that this case will reach its logical conclusion. We will continue to extend all possible cooperation to the authorities,” BharatPe said in its statement.
