Snapdeal Founders Summoned by Delhi Court for Allegedly Stealing Marketplace Concept

E-commerce major Snapdeal's CEO Kunal Bahl and two others have been summoned by a Delhi court on a criminal complaint of an entrepreneur who alleged that his idea of connecting sellers and buyers through an e-platform was unauthorisedly usurped by the firm and its officials.

Additional Sessions Judge R K Tripathi issued notice to Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl, COO Rohit Bansal and its former chief financial officer (CFO) Vijay Ajmera for allegedly stealing entrepreneur Gaurav Dua's concept of "non-inventory holding marketplace model for retail" in the garb of collaborating with him.

"Heard. Record perused. Issue notice of revision petition to respondents vide all prescribed modes returnable for May 17, 2017," the judge said.

Dua had lodged a criminal complaint against the founders and the CFO under sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, which was dismissed by a trial court earlier.

He had then filed a revision petition before sessions court. As per his complaint, Dua, an engineer and entrepreneur, founded portals marketsdelhi.com in 1999 and indianretail.net in 2005 and brought the benefits of digital technology to the retail community.

He claimed in his petition that he was the brain behind the non-inventory holding marketplace model for retail in India and alleged that the Snapdeal officials cheated him under the garb of raising funds for his business.

"Snapdeal founders, who claimed to champion the approach which put them ahead of other e-commerce companies, cheated Dua in the garb of collaboration with him and raising venture funds for his validated business.

Instead, "under the garb of collaboration and funding, held extensive discussions over many months but instead duped him by deploying all criminal tactics to part with the insights and workings of his work done over 10 years," the complaint alleged.

He claimed that for two years, the Delhi Police failed to register an FIR on his complaint after which he knocked the door of the court.

The trial court, however, dismissed his complaint, after which he filed a revision petition before the present judge.

Snapdeal, in a statement, has denied the allegations levelled against its CEO, COO and former CFO by Dua in his criminal complaint.

"The allegations made in the revision petition filed by Gaurav Dua are absolutely baseless and devoid of any merit," a statement issued by the e-commerce major said.

It further said that a previous complaint filed by Dua in this regard was dismissed by a court here as it was found to be baseless.

"A previous complaint filed by Dua in this regard has been dismissed by the competent court and was found to be baseless and without any merit after taking into consideration all the materials placed on the record by Dua himself.

"The revision petition is an abuse of the process of law and has been filed with malicious intent to harm the reputation of the named individuals. The company intends to take all legal remedies against Dua in this regard," it said.