Delhi court issues summons to Snapdeal founders for usurping marketing concept

A Delhi court has summoned Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl and two others on a criminal complaint of an entrepreneur who alleged that the firm and its officials unauthorisedly usurped his idea of connecting sellers and buyers through an e-platform.

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 cheating 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.