The government has ordered an inspection into the account books of edtech giant Byju’s, according to a Bloomberg report quoting people familiar with the matter. The report comes after the company’s auditor and three board members resigned last month.
The corporate affairs ministry has sought a report in six weeks, the report said. The inspection follows an internal assessment of the company’s state of affairs and — based on findings of the inspection — the government will decide if the matter needs to be escalated to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Bloomberg reported.
Last month, Deliotte Haskins & Sells resigned as Byju’s auditor, citing a delay in submitting statements.
Recently, Byju’s skipped paying $40 million in interest payments on the term loan B it had raised in November 2021. Following this, the company had also filed a case against one of its lenders in the New York Supreme Court and also sought disqualification of the lender and called it “predatory”.
The lawsuit was, however, term “meritless” by the group of lenders, who they say collectively own more than 85 per cent of Byju’s $1.2 billion term loan.
In late-April, the ED also conducted searches on Byju’s as part of a foreign exchange violation probe under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). A total of three premises, two businesses and one residential, of Byju’s CEO Raveendran Byju and his company were raided.
The ED statement said Byju’s has not prepared its financial statements since the financial year 2020-21 and has not got the accounts audited, which is mandatory.
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