More trouble brews for the Indian edtech start-up Byju’s as the government of India has ordered an inspection into the account books of the enterprise.
The development came a few days after Deloitte Haskins & Sells, its auditor, and three of its board members resigned.
A Bloomberg report, citing multiple sources who are aware of the development, has stated that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has asked for the inspection reports. The inspection will follow an internal assessment of the edtech’s state of affairs.
Based on those reports, the Ministry will decide whether a serious fraud investigation needs to be launched.
The poster boy of India’s edtech sector and the most valued start-up Byju’s has been in the news for the wrong reasons since last year. A much-delayed audit report revealed that the company went through a net loss of Rs 4,5588 crore in the financial year (FY) 2021. A few days after, the edtech giant announced a five per cent rationalisation of its 50,000-strong employee bandwidth, which led to nearly 2,500 people losing their jobs.
However, the controversies did not end with laying off massive chunks of employees. Later that year, Byju Raveendran, the CEO of the company was summoned by National Commission For Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) for the alleged malpractices conducted by the company’s sales team. The company was also accused of threatening kids and their parents.