Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has taken Deepak Gupta, close relative of BharatPe co-founder and former Managing Director (MD) Ashneer Grover in connection with the alleged misappropriation of funds from the fintech firm.

Deepak Gupta, who is married to the sister of Madhuri Grover, wife of Ashneer Grover, was taken into custody on the evening of September 19 and was produced in court on Friday.

Elaborating on the case, DCP Economic Offences Wing (EOW) Raja Banthia said, “It is informed that on the complaint of M/s Resilient Innovations Pvt Ltd (Bharat Pe), a case on May 10, 2023 under sections 406 (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), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), and 120-B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) of IPC was registered at EOW police station.”

He added that it has been alleged that Grover, Madhuri Jain Grover and other officials were involved in criminal misappropriation of company’s funds, on the basis of various fabricated documents. “Accordingly, payments were made to non-existent vendors and HR consultancy firms causing a wrongful loss of Rs. 81 Crores approx to the complainant company,” the DCP said.

A senior officer said that Gupta was also named in the FIR which was registered and added that Gupta is being interrogated. “During investigation, it was revealed that accused Deepak Gupta was the Procurement Head at that time in the complainant company and he used to acknowledge the bogus deliveries of standees etc on the basis of which the payments were made to the non-existent firms,” Banthia added.

In August this year, the EOW had arrested Amit Kumar Bansal, who allegedly was one of the members of the non-existing firms that had received payments of Rs 72 crore from the then directors of BharatPe between 2019 and 2021. Upon interrogation, Bansal also corroborated to Gupta’s role.

“His involvement in the case is also corroborated from interrogation of accused Amit Bansal who was arrested earlier is and presently in judicial custody,” he said.

BharatPe has accused Grover and his family of causing losses to the firm to the tune of about Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human-resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input-tax credit and payment of penalty to Goods and Services Tax (GST) authorities, illegal payments to travel agencies, forged invoices and destruction of evidence. “Further investigation is in progress in the matter,” the DCP stated.