New Delhi: BharatPe’s former managing director Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain were stopped by Delhi Police as they were preparing to leave for New York Thursday night, as officials step up investigations into charges of financial fraud against the couple.
The move comes days after the economic offences wing (EOW) of Delhi Police filed a status report at the Delhi High Court related to alleged financial irregularities at BharatPe by Grover and his family members. The probe agency also issued a lookout circular for the couple earlier this week, officials said.
Grover and Jain were asked to return to their residence and subsequently issued a summons on Friday morning. They have not been arrested.
The police are seeking to interrogate the couple regarding several large transactions that have surfaced from scrutiny of their bank accounts, a senior Delhi Police officer said, adding that the total amount involved in the alleged fraud could be well over ₹81 crore.
The EOW has found that Jain, a former head of controls at BharatPe, received sums of about ₹5 crore, ₹3 crore, and ₹2 crore from her father Suresh Jain, mother Santosh Jain, and brother Shwetank Jain, respectively, the officer said quoting the status report.
“During the investigation, it was also found that Grover, from one of his accounts, transferred a (total) sum of nearly ₹46 crore to the account of his father, Ashok Grover, from 2019 to 2022,” he said.
Without interrogating Grover and Jain such huge transactions cannot be verified, or their purpose ascertained, the officer said.
Sindhu Pillai, joint commissioner of police (EOW), said the couple was “stopped before security check and asked to return to their Delhi residence and join the probe at the EOW office at Mandir Marg next week.”
The lookout circular was meant to stop them from travelling abroad, she said, adding, “They have yet not been arrested.”
Grover did not reply to a Mint query sent over WhatsApp.
Grover, who last year started another venture called Third Unicorn, confirmed the summons from the EOW on social networking platform X, previously Twitter.
He, however, said he hadn’t received any notices or calls from the EOW since a first information report (FIR) was filed in May and until 8 am on 17 November, seven hours after he was stopped at the airport.
Grover wrote on X that he was informed during immigration of an LoC issued by the EOW against him and his wife, adding he had travelled abroad four times since the FIR was issued.
On Friday morning, he received a summons from EOW at his residence and expressed his willingness to cooperate, he wrote.
BharatPe sacked Grover and Jain early last year over the allegations of financial fraud.
Mint earlier this week reported that recruitment firms linked to Grover and his family members had used backdated invoices to syphon off funds for work they never did for the fintech unicorn, according to an investigation by the EOW of Delhi Police.
