BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover and wife Madhuri Jain were stopped at the Delhi international airport on late Thursday following a look out circular issued against the two on the behest of Economic Offence Wing (EoW), according to an Economic Times report. The two were traveling to New York in the US, the report added.
Entrackr has reached out to Grover and Jain for a statement on the same. We will update the post as soon as they respond.
This comes after reports citing the EoW investigation claimed that BharatPe made payments to fake human resource consultancies allegedly operated by Grover, Jain, and Jain’s family members. They were also accused of backdating invoices to use funds.
Grover, however, has turned down these claims.
“I’ll be last man standing long after ‘BharatPe’ , Sequoia (oh sorry they already wrapped up in India), 2 takke ke anpadh press vaale and ‘Twitter’ judges are gone ! Mark my words !!” he said in a tweet.
Grover was also locked in a war of words with CapitalMind founder and CEO Deepak Shenoy after the latter tweeted: “Ashneer Grover apparently siphoned out funds to his family in the name of recruitment services – a well-known mechanism to take money out. So stupidly done too – they backdated invoices with bank accounts that didn’t even exist at that date!”
Grover responded saying, “…₹53 crore ki entry mil gayi sir. You’ve great memory in addition to judgement. But sir yeh paise to investors ne hi bheje the mujhe – as part of Series E round. To ab aap jaldi se clean chit de do mujhe – asli court mein bahut kaam aayegi…”
Grover has been at the centre of multiple controversies after their public fallout with BharatPe, which he had co-founded in 2018.
While Grover stepped down in March 2022, he claimed that his ouster from BharatPe was a conspiracy.
BharatPe had registered a criminal complaint against Grover and Family in December 2022 alleging fraud and seeking recovery of over Rs 88.67 crore in damages from Grover and family under various heads. The company’s co-founder Bhavik Koladiya and Shahvat Nakrani also filed a complaint against Grover in January and March 2023 respectively for share dispute.
In May 2023, the Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) registered a first information report (FIR) against the company’s co-founder Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain, and other family members.
