BYJU’S RP Sues Former Directors Over Alleged Transfer Of Company Assets

BYJU’S current resolution professional Shailendra Ajmera has filed a lawsuit against Think & Learn Private Limited’s former directors Byju Raveendran, Riju Ravindran and Divya Gokulnath for allegedly transferring the company assets.

As per the lawsuit, filed at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on April 18, it also named BYJU’S former group chief technology officer Jiney Thathil.

A separate ET report said that in the lawsuit, the RP has demanded compensation for the fraudulent transfers of $533 Mn by BYJU’S US subsidiary to its related companies and INR 130 Cr from Think & Learn to one of its Indian subsidiaries. 

In response, BYJU’S founders had said, “The baseless allegations being circulated against the founders of BYJU’S regarding a supposed $533 Mn fraud are not new. These false claims have been repeated multiple times without any evidence and are clearly part of an orchestrated effort to build a false narrative.” 

The next hearing is scheduled for July 9. 

In a separate development, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) will reportedly resume its probe on the lapses found in BYJU’S financial statements. A report by Financial Express said that the ICAI has constituted four new benches and one of them will look into the probe of the edtech startup. 

“One of these benches will take up the investigation of Byju’S, and resume from the point from where the last bench had left off. The new benches will be re-constituted on Thursday (On June 19) with each of them having five members,” president of ICAI, Charanjot Singh Nanda told FE. 

Currently, the BYJU case is being investigated by the disciplinary committee of ICAI. The edtech’s tryst with the apex CA body dates back to 2022, when the latter started investigating its improper financial disclosures in November. A year later, the matter was transferred to ICAI’s Financial Reporting Review Board (FRRB). 

FRRB said in its report that it found negligence by the individual auditors of BYJU’S and flagged gross negligence on accounting practices by the auditors.  

Ajmera was appointed as the RP of BYJU in March after the NCLT had replaced the former RP Pankaj Srivastava terming him as “unfit’ for the insolvency process. Besides, the lenders of the edtech startup which includes the likes of GLAS Trust and Aditya Birla Capital had also asked the NCLT for the removal of Srivastava as the RP for not including them in the Committee Of Creditors. 

Earlier this year, the founders of BYJU’S including Raveendran and his wife Gokulnath shared on a LinkedIn post that they received documents which stated that auditor EY, the former RP and the lenders banded together to work against the interest of the BYJU’S founders and formed a ‘criminal collusion.’

Also in March, the US Insolvency Court which was hearing the edtech’s US subsidiary BYJU’S Alpha which included a term loan of $1.2 Bn ruled in the favour of the lenders. The case pertained to a fraudulent transfer of $533 Mn to Camshaft Fund by BYJU’S Alpha.