New York-bound Ashneer Grover, wife Madhuri Jain stopped at Delhi airport after EOW issues look out circular

BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain were reportedly halted at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Thursday after a look out circular (LoC) was issued against the couple. The circular was issued at the request of the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police. The couple was travelling to New York, the Economic Times reported on Friday.

The couple was reportedly sent back to their residence in Delhi and was asked to join the EOW investigation next week.

The Economic Offence Wing has lodged an FIR in June against the couple and some of their family members for alleged misappropriation of funds and causing losses worth Rs 81 crore to Resilient Innovations Private Limited (RIPL), which runs BharatPe. In its FIR, the EOW had named Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, and family members, including Deepak Gupta, Suresh Jain, and Shwetank Jain. 

Earlier, BharatPe had filed a criminal complaint in 2022 with the EOW mentioning 17 charges, including embezzlement, forgery, and criminal breach of trust. If proven guilty, the Grovers can imprisoned for up to ten years.

EOW probe revealed that Ashneer Grover and his family generated backdated invoices to siphon off money from BharatPe. It found that the invoices of recruitment firms linked to BharatPe co-founder Grover’s family gave bank account numbers that were created after the date of issue.

“These invoices were provided by the vendors and the complainant company to the investigating agency, which established that these fake invoices were created at a later stage after the opening of bank accounts of these firms," stated the status report submitted by EOW to the Delhi High Court.

"These firms were established and their bank accounts were opened only for the purpose of siphoning off funds and for causing wrongful gain to the alleged persons,” it added as reported by Moneycontrol. 

A lawsuit brought by BharatPe stated that Grover's wife Madhuri Jain approved payments totalling Rs 7.6 crore to eight such vendors who did not assist the company in recruiting any employees.

The report further said that the registered addresses of all the eight HR firms belong to family members or relatives of Madhuri Jain, Suresh Jain [father of Madhuri (Jain) Grover] and Shwetank Jain (brother of Madhuri Jain). "In all these eight alleged firms, around 7.60 crore was found credited, almost all the credit entries coming from complainant company RIPL,” it added.

BharatPe has further claimed that Jain and her family members not only connived to carry out these fraudulent transactions on recruitment services but that these eight vendors also had close ties to them and each other.

The fintech unicorn also filed a civil suit against Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain, and other family members, seeking over Rs 88 crore in damages for alleged misappropriation of funds.

Besides these fresh accusations, the company had earlier said that Grover contributed nothing to the BharatPe technology or concept. It alleged that he joined the company in 2018 with a ‘paltry’ investment of Rs 31,920, for which he received 3,192 shares. 

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