EOW registers FIR against Ashneer Grover, Wife Madhuri Jain and family

The Economics Offences Wing (EOW) has filed a FIR against Ashneer Grover, his wife and BharatPe’s head of controls Madhuri (Jain) Grover, and three other family members.

Deepak Gupta, former Head of Procurement at BharatPe and Ashneer’s brother, Madhuri’s brother Shwetank Jain, and Suresh Jain are also named in the FIR. The FIR was filed on eight counts of serious cognizable criminal offences, and if convicted, Grover and Madhuri, among others, may face ten years to life in prison. EOW now has the authority to arrest all of the defendants.

The accusations made by BharatPe include ₹7.6 crore illegitimate payments to bogus HR consultants (having nexus with the accused) on the basis of eighty-six (86) false and forged invoices, inflated and undue payments through passthrough vendors connected to the accused persons to the detriment of BharatPe.

Further, the fintech company has also accused its former MD and Head of controls of sham transactions and embezzlement of ₹ 71.76 crore, dishonest and illegal payments to travel agencies basis false and fabricated invoices for services already availed from genuine providers, destruction of evidence and personal enrichment through reimbursements by Madhuri Jain Grover using self-created fake and forged invoices.

The FIR has been registered on eight counts of serious cognizable criminal offences under section 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), and 20B (punishment of criminal conspiracy).