BYJU’s fails to make PF payments in June for most employees despite EPFO order: Report

Embattled edtech major BYJU’s has delayed the provident fund (PF) payments to most of its employees, Moneycontrol reported on Tuesday. In June, BYJU’s reportedly made PF payment to 738 employees, compared to 25,000 employees in May.  

Employees even confirmed the development, the report said. EPFO data showed that the beleaguered company has paid Rs 14.6 lakh as the PF contribution for June. 

Last month, EPFO directed BYJU's to ensure that PF contributions were regularised.

In June, BYJU’s released PF payments for 24,818 employees in the last week after its non-payment was widely reported.  

Prior to this, BYJU’s had not made PF contributions for April and May, while in January, February and March, the company partly made contributions to 10,000-13,000 employees. 

The report said that BYJU’s confirmed that it had settled PF payments until May. The company had further agreed to clear June PF payments by July 15. 

BYJU'S has been in the eye of the storm since the beginning of this year, rattled by a host of issues, including a tussle with its lenders, resignations of its directors and its auditor, and government's scan.

Earlier in the day, Prosus, one of BYJU’S prominent investors, said that the company grew considerably since 2018. However, its reporting and governance structures did not evolve adequately enough to support the company of that scale. 

“Despite repeated efforts from our Director, executive leadership at BYJU’S regularly disregarded advice and recommendations relating to strategic, operational, legal, and corporate governance matters,” the company said in a statement.  

It further said, “The decision for our Director to step down from the BYJU’S Board was taken after it became clear that he was unable to fulfil his fiduciary duty to serve the long-term interests of the Company and its stakeholders.” 

Prosus holds about nine per cent within the edtech giant. In June, three non-promoter directors on the board resigned. 

GV Ravishankar, representing Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India), Vivian Vu representing Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Russel Dreinstock representing Prosus resigned from the board leaving Byju Raveendran, his wife Divya Gokulnath and brother Riju Raveendran as the only board members.  

Audit firm Deloitte too resigned as auditors of Byju's citing a delay in submission of financial statements. In a letter sent to the board of Think & Learn Pvt Ltd (known as Byju's), Deloitte said it has not been able to start an audit due to the delays and that will have a "significant impact" on its ability to "plan, design perform and complete" the audit as per standards. 

Also read: ‘BYJU’S regularly disregarded advice’: Prosus on stepping down from BYJU’S Board

Also read: BYJU’s vacates two office spaces in Bengaluru as cost-saving measure: Report