Sonia Dhawan, the former Vice President of Paytm who was arrested in October for allegedly trying to extort Rs 20 crore from company founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma by threatening to leak confidential data was granted bail by the Allahabad High Court earlier last week.
Her bail was reportedly granted on four conditions and the execution of a personal bond, According to the Economic Times, the court order stated, “The applicant will not tamper with the evidence during the trial; will not pressurise/intimidate the prosecution witness; will appear before the trial court on the date fixed and the applicant will not commit offence”.
The Times of India reported that in court, Sonia claimed she was not guilty and that there was no concrete proof against her, and that also that there was no proof of her stealing any data from Paytm.
“Without entering into merit of the case but considering the facts and circumstances, nature of accusation and severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence...the applicant is entitled to be released on bail,” the court said, according to ToI.
With this, all four accused in the Paytm case are out on bail. The bail of two of the accused was one of the points with which Sonia pleaded that she be granted bail. Sonia spent over four months in jail, and her bail was initially rejected by a Noida court in February for playing an “active role” in a serious crime.
Sonia Dhawan, her husband Rupak Jain and Devendra Kumar, an employee at the company's administration department were arrested following the alleged extortion bid. Sonia, who was Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s former assistant, who had access to all his information, allegedly threatened to leak confidential data.
Sonia had been a part of Paytm since January 2010, having joined as Vijay’s personal secretary. From there, she went on to become the corporate communication head at the company. Her designation at the company at the time of her arrest was Vice President - Corporate Communications / Public Relations and she reportedly also held 1,400 shares in the company as of November 2017, which was reportedly worth Rs 1.79 crore.