City based apparel seller Rajdhani Cotton has filed a complaint with Delhi Police against Jasper Infotech Private Limited, which runs e-commerce firm Snapdeal, and its founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, for alleged non-payment of dues to them.
Speaking to Pixr8 here, one of the promoters of Rajdhani Cotton, Rajat Gupta, said, “We have lodged a complaint with Delhi police to look into a matter of cheating and breach of trust. Snapdeal owes us Rs 67.6 lakh for business transactions between April 2014 and April 2016, but it has fraudulently withheld payments.”
Police has filed a case against Jasper and its founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, under IPC sections 406 (breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy), the counsel for Rajdhani Cottons Aditya Parolia said.
The case also has also been lodged under section 120 of the Companies Act, 2013, where companies are supposed to keep accounts for eight years, he said.
Parolia said “it is the responsibility of Snapdeal to keep the accounts with them, which they have not done. This is the reason why they cannot consolidate the payments which are to be made to vendors. Whenever we go and ask them for payments, they on the contrary ask us to produce the accounts for payments.”
Responding to the matter, Snapdeal spokesperson said the company will deal with the issue as per the contractual terms of the agreement and as per established process of law.
He said Snapdeal had offered to pay the amount due to Rajdhani Cottons as per the working shared by the company with the seller.
The spokesperson said the seller wishes to claim a higher amount and is unable or unwilling to provide the required documents to support the claim, and instead is resorting to complaints and notices over the past many months.
Last month, a Bengaluru metropolitan court had summoned 11 Snapdeal executives including Kunal Bahl, for allegedly violating a financial contract and owing dues to Dreams Event, a company which runs Bengaluru Fashion Week.
In February, a group of sellers from Snapdeal-affiliated All India Online Vendor Association (AIOVA) had petitioned Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for non-payment of their dues by the e-commerce firm.
AIVOA had complained that Snapdeal held Rs 300-400 crore in the form of outstanding dues and goods in transit/refunds.
In March, State Bank of India had sent advisories to nearly 100 sellers, coming under Snapdeals capital-assist programme, to reduce their outstanding loans above their drawing power.
The advisory was issued after a letter written by AIOVA to Sitharaman, raising fears that Snapdeal may default on payments to the sellers. The company’s lead investor SoftBank is currently looking to salvage its investment by merging it with rival Flipkart.