In a development the in legal tussle between Quickdel Logistics, which owns logistics firm GoJavas and Jasper Infotech, Anand Rai, the owner of Quickdel has filed a fresh complaint against Jasper Infotech, promoters Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and Vulcan Express, the inhouse logistics arm of Jasper Infotech.
According to a report in Economic Times, Anand has filed a complaint with Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Wednesday alleging criminal breach of trust, cheating, intellectual property theft, theft of trade secrets and data and misappropriation of funds, among others.
“We expect a First Information Report to be filed over the next few days. There has been a breach of trust, and they have maligned the name of GoJavas,” ET quotes Anand as saying.
This comes two weeks after Anand sued the same parties seeking a compensation of Rs 300 crore, which Jasper Infotech responded to as baseless.
Responding to the fresh complaint, Jasper Infotech told ET that the company will initiate strict legal action against Quickdel and that it goes against the “Release and Settlement Agreement” dated 31st March 2017 signed by the company, further adding that the allegations were baseless and a ‘frivolous attempt at extortion’.
The fresh complaint will be added to the complaint filed by Rai and Quickdel Logistics in June earlier this year.
Anand told VCCircle Snapdeal founders had unduly benefitted from the sale of GoJavas.
Earlier this month, Rai had told ET that he planned on approaching the Delhi High Court for relief and that he was still open to an out-of-court settlement with the parties.
Background
Snapdeal acquired 20% stake in GoJavas for $20 million and entering into a supply-chain partnership with it in March 2015.
VCCircle reports that the business partnership at the time of investment entailed Snapdeal providing 190,000 packages per day for delivery.
By October 2015, Snapdeal upped its stake in Gojavas to about 42% by investing another $20 million.
Anand bought Jasper Infotech’s 49% stake in Quickdel in March for an undisclosed sum.
In June, Jasper Infotech, the parent company of Snapdeal filed a case of forgery, cheating and misappropriation of funds against the former senior executives and directors of GoJavas at the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police.
While GoJavas has earlier said that the deal helped the company, there are allegations that Snapdeal used GoJavas to run tests, such as 90-minute reverse pick-up and swipe on delivery, and siphoned off money to the tune of Rs 100 crore by raising fraudulent debit notes.
As per the ET report, Snapdeal had invested more than Rs 300 crore in the company, across rounds, before pulling the plug and building its in-house logistics unit, Vulcan Express.
The complaint alleged that the erstwhile promoters and senior executives of GoJavas, including former executive director of Quickdel Logistics Abhijeet Singh, promoters Praveen Sinha, Randhir Singh and Ashish Chaudhary committed fraud, breach of trust, conspiracy and criminal misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 357.26 crore.
The complaint was registered during the ongoing talks with Flipkart.