ED raids Byju’s offices, CEO’s home for FEMA violation; finds ‘incriminating evidence’: Report

NEW DELHI : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the residence and offices of Byju’s CEO Byju Raveendran on April 29. According to reports, the directorate has found “incriminating evidence” from the raids under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

FEMA deals with the laws relating to the external trades and foreign exchange payments of companies.

According to India Today , the company received foreign direct investments of over Rs 28,000 crore from 2011 to 2023. The company has also dispersed over Rs 9,700 crore to various foreign jurisdictions.

However, the popular edtech platform has not submitted its financial statements from the year 2020-21. The company also has not got its accounts audited as is mandatory.

According to reports, the ED had given several summons to Byju’s CEO Byju Raveendran following complaints by many private people but he never appeared before the ED.

Earlier, in February, senior Byju’s executive and co-founder Divya Gokulnath had met the school education secretary. “Marking the possibilities of working together with NCERT it was decided to create a common platform for all edtech companies and startups,” the latter tweeted.

byju’s के सह-संस्थापक दिव्या गोकुलनाथ और उनकी टीम से डिजिटल शिक्षा और कंटेंट(content) के संदर्भ में चर्चा की गयी। @ncert के साथ मिलकर कार्य करने की संभावनाओं को चिन्हित करते हुए सभी edtech कंपनियाँ और startups का साझा मंच बनाने का निर्णय लिया गया॥ @EduMinOfIndia pic.twitter.com/xP5nYvnfOx

— Sanjay Kumar (@sanjayjavin) February 23, 2023

Both the meeting and the post had drawn criticism from other social media users then.

Byju’s is a Bengaluru-based company that provides digital education and test preparation content for various education levels. Byju’s had also recently acquired other educational companies such as test preparation platform Aakash, online coding platform White Hat Jr, and Great Lakes, among others.