SUMMARY
A Begusarai court in Bihar issued an arrest warrant against CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy over alleged contempt of court
The court had summoned Krishnamurthy over a case filed against Flipkart accusing it of cheating and forgery
The complainant said that Flipkart was not refunding the INR 17,000 he spent on a smartphone he did not receive; Flipkart replied by stating that it never received any payments
A Begusarai court in Bihar issued an arrest warrant against ecommerce giant Flipkart’s CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy over alleged contempt of court.
The court issued the same after Krishnamurthy allegedly failed to appear in person after the Begusarai court had issued him a summons over a case filed by a disgruntled Flipkart customer, alleging the ecommerce company of fraud and forgery.
The case started with one Rajesh Kumar, a resident of Begusarai, who had ordered a smartphone worth INR 17,000 from Flipkart.
He claimed that he completed the payment for the same online as well. However, he did not receive his smartphone. Kumar further stated that he had called up Flipkart support, which failed to resolve his problem.
After going through all channels for getting his refund, he decided to move court against Flipkart and its CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. Rajesh filed a case of cheating and forgery against the ecommerce company.
The customer’s counsel sent a legal notice to Flipkart to refund Rajesh’s money. However, Flipkart said that it did not receive any payment from Kumar and hence the complainant’s claim wasn’t valid.
However, the Judicial Magistrate of Begusarai court took cognisance of the case and issued a summons to the Flipkart CEO and asked him to be present in court. However, Krishnamurthy did not appear on the given date.
While hearing the case, the magistrate took offence over Krishnamurthy’s absence and issued an arrest warrant.
The ecommerce platform declined to comment on the matter when reached out by Inc42.
The ecommerce platform has been seeing its fair share of trouble over the past few weeks. Towards the end of April, a few of the top sellers of Flipkart were raided by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over alleged anti-competitive practices.
Around the same time, Flipkart was again in the limelight for all the wrong reasons as its branded packaging was found containing narcotics in the Shaheen Bagh drugs bust. The Narcotics Bureau of India had seized narcotics worth around INR 100 Cr.
However, the Indian ecommerce unicorn had filed an FIR against the unknown persons who were involved in the narcotics ring, accusing them of intellectual property violations and stating that it was counterfeit packaging that was being used.
Update| 14th May, 11:05 AM
After Inc42 reported on the matter, Flipkart issued an official statement. The ecommerce giant has said that the allegations against Flipkart are ‘non-maintainable’. The company stated that the matter is pertaining to the complainant’s bank to refund the dues.
Flipkart has also moved the Patna High Court challenging these proceedings, which has granted interim protection to the ecommerce platform and its employees.
“Since the matter is sub-judice, we refrain from making any further comments,” it said.
