HC refuses to stay EOW probe against BharatPe ex-MD Ashneer Grover, wife

Issuing notice on the application on interim relief, a single-judge bench of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani observed, “The petitioners seek stay of investigation and in the alternative seeks that Investigating Officer gives to the petitioners advance written notice in the event he needs their custody. However, this court is of the view that no case is made out at least at this stage for staying investigation in the matter…”

Regarding the prayer for advance written notice for arrest, the court said that the petitioners are “at liberty to adopt other remedies available to them…in accordance with law”.

The HC also issued notice in the main petition, asking EOW to file a status report, and listed the matter on September 25.

Appearing for the Grovers, advocate Giriraj Subramanium argued that his clients were “promoter-directors” of Resilient Innovations Private Limited, and that the FIR shows the allegations relate to “certain transactions relating to GST and other matters pertaining to management and affairs of the company, which the petitioners were entitled to conduct in their capacity as directors of the company”.

For this, he contended, they had the “requisite authority from the board of directors”.

Subramanium said his clients were, in fact, involved in the “nurturing of the company from a small venture to a valuation of about Rs 20,000 crore in 2023”. He contended that allegations in the FIR “do not disclose any criminality” and drew the court’s attention to the company’s annual report for 2021-22 to submit that the accounts were “adopted by the board” with a “specific noting that despite certain observations of the statutory auditors and their opinion regarding material deficiencies with respect to financial controls, the financial statement of the company as on 31-03-2022 reflects a true and fair view of the financial position of profit and loss.”

He submitted that “no instances of fraud were reported by the company’s statutory auditor”, and that the complaint, “based on which FIR was registered”, is on “malafides”. There is “no reason why investigation should be permitted to go on”, he argued.

Senior advocates Dayan Krishnan and Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Resilient Innovations, opposed the issuance of notice. They submitted that the matter concerns complex financial transactions which the company alleges were undertaken by the “petitioners, and which amounted to defalcation of funds”. They argued that the essence of the allegations in the complaint are that the petitioners “availed input tax credits under GST law in relation to bogus transactions where vendors did not exist and also committed other acts of siphoning of monies and forgery of documents in relation to recruitment into the company to the benefit of the relatives of petitioner 1 (Madhuri)”.

Madhuri and Ashneer Grover, Deepak Gupta, Suresh Jain, Shwetank Jain and others have been booked under IPC Sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk/servant), 409 (criminal breach of trust by banker/merchant), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using forged document) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).