Hours after former BharatPe CEO Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain were stopped at Delhi airport on the basis of a lookout circular (LoC) issued by Economic Offences Wing (EOW, he said he's not a "flight risk".
Grover said he and his wife were stopped from boarding a flight to US. He said their travel dates were November 16-23.
The EoW in May filed an FIR against Grover, his wife Madhuri and family members Deepak Gupta, Suresh Jain and Shwetank Jain for an alleged Rs 81-crore fraud after a complaint by fintech unicorn BhartPe.
Grover took to X platform to explain the incident and said he had not received any communication from the probe agency till Friday.
"I was going to US from 16-23 November. At immigration they said LoC laga hua hai sir - EOW se check kar ke batate hai (Look out notice has been issued and will update you after checking with EOW). I found it strange as have travelled 4 times internationally since FIR filed in May - never been a problem and I had not even been summoned once. Flight left in meantime anyways - EOW folks directed Immigration to let us out so that we can return home," he said.
He said he got aware about the LoC issued against them seven hours after they returned from airport."LOC hatane ka process hai (there is a process to get LOC revoked) - I am not a flight risk - easy to prove," he added.
Ashneer Grover and his family members used backdated invoices to siphon off funds for work they never did for the fintech unicorn, according to an investigation by the EOW of Delhi Police, said a news report earlier this week.
The probe agency also could not trace many firms to which BharatPe had made vendor payments.
BharatPe, in the complaint, alleged that Grover and his family caused damages of about Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through passthrough vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri and destruction of evidence.
If convicted, Grover, Madhuri and others can face up to anything between 10 years to life imprisonment.
In December 2022, BharatPe had also filed a civil suit with the Delhi High Court against its former MD and co-founder Grover and his family, seeking up to Rs 88.67 crore in damages for alleged cheating and embezzlement of funds.
The suit, running into 2,800 pages, alleged that Grover, Madhuri and other family members created fake bills, enlisted fictitious vendors to provide services to the company and overcharged the company for recruitment.
Madhuri was the head of controls at BharatPe and was fired earlier in 2022 after a forensic audit revealed several irregularities. Subsequently, Ashneer Grover resigned as CEO in March 2022.
BharatPe, last year, hit the headlines when Grover was accused of using inappropriate language and threatening a Kotak Group employee for failing to secure an allotment and funding for the Nykaa IPO for himself and Madhuri.
Thereafter, BharatPe appointed Alvarez and Marsal, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and PwC to conduct a corporate governance review and determine whether Grover had committed willful misconduct.
This led to the ouster of Madhuri and Grover from the company and its board in March.
On May 10, 2022, BharatPe said that after a detailed review, the company had decided to take steps against employees involved in misconduct and claw back Grover’s restricted shares.
Grover has so far remained defiant and attacked anyone reporting on the investigation by EoW.
''Don’t pronounce me dead till 13 days after you’ve burned me at the pyre !,'' he said in the post on X on Friday.
With inputs from PTI