FIR lodged against Shopclues co-founders in alleged fraud

NEW DELHI: An FIR has been filed against two cofounders of online shopping firm 'Shopclues' on a complaint lodged by its founder Sandeep Aggarwal, who alleged in a city court that he has been cheated by them.

Aggarwal's wife Radhika and Sanjay Sethi, chief business officer and CEO respectively of 'shopclues.com', have been booked by the police following a specific order of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sandeep Garg to register the FIR against the two co-founders.

The court held that "a prima facie case for commission of cognisable offences is made out." The complainant had approached the court through advocate Vijay Aggarwal, alleging that his wife and his friend Sethi had conspired together and fabricated several documents to gain control over the company.

"They took his signatures on wrong papers and committed forgery to usurp the company," the counsel said.

The founder claimed that while he was facing charges of insider trading in a separate case in the United States, Radhika and Sethi had hatched a criminal conspiracy along with other unknown persons to oust him from his own firm Shopclues which was launched in India in 2011.

The FIR has been lodged for the alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, forgery and cheating under the Indian Penal Code.

Aggarwal has stated that he was the original founder and visionary behind Shopclues. NEW DELHI: Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday rolled out negotiable warehousing receipts in electronic format that farmers can use to avail of bank credit easily and without fear of losing or misusing it.

He also unveiled a web portal for registration of warehouses in a faster and more transparent manner.

Negotiable warehouse receipt, which was launched in 2011, allows transfer of ownership of that commodity stored in a warehouse without having to deliver the physical commodity.

These receipts are issued in negotiable form, making them eligible as collateral for loans.

Warehouse receipts are made negotiable under the Warehouse (Development and Regulation) Act, 2007, and regulated by the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA).

"Till now, the receipts were issued manually. Now, it will be given in an electronic format, which will not only benefit farmers, but banks and other stakeholders," Paswan said at the launch of the event.

Farmers will not have to worry about losing the receipt -- which has details of the quantity, quality and the warehouse where the commodity is stored -- as it will be uploaded online and will be accessible to banks while sanctioning loan, he said.

This will also stop farmers from taking multiple bank loans on a single receipt, he added. On the new portal, the minister said the process of reg- istration with the WDRA has been simplified and fastened.

Now, warehouses can register online through the portal.

"Digitalising the entire process of registration, monitoring and surveillance as well as creation and management of negotiable warehouse receipts in electronic form through two repositories will benefit farmers and is a step towards doubling farmers' income by 2022," Paswan said.

So far, 980 warehouses have been registered with the WDRA while there are 64,000 warehouses in the country storing over 20,000 tonnes of commodities. CHENNAI: The leather industry with an export turnover of $5.6 billion would require an additional capital requirement of "over Rs 3,000 crore" following implementation of the Goods and Service Tax, an industry official said on Tuesday.

"Because of GST, there will be an additional working capital requirement of over Rs 3,000 crore and since 80 per cent of businesses in this industry are small scale, they are finding it difficult..," Council for Leather Exports Chairman Mukhtarul Amin told reporters here.

Elaborating, he said small and medium enterprises which comprise 80 per cent of the sector would be unable to make the capital requirement and "may be forced to shut during coming months."

Amin said the Centre's duty drawback scheme announced for leather exporters should be extended till March 2018 as significant amount of capital for the exporters were already blocked on the account for payment of GST.

"As GST refund mechanism is not yet ready, the full drawback scheme has to be extended upto March 2018," he said.

Amin requested the government to reduce GST from the current 12 per cent to five per cent collected for finished leather goods.

He also said there should be reduction of tax rates from 18 per cent to five per cent on job work to manufacture leather products.

"Collecting 18 per cent of GST on job work rendering will make most of industries jobless," he said.

India's leather exports have been "flat" over the last three years he said and added the government should provide some incentive as the leather exports from new markets like Bangladesh and Vietnam were increasing.