Byju Raveendran Alleges Conspiracy Against Him, Shares Video On X

Byju Raveendran has claimed that there is a conspiracy against him and his eponymous startup that is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.

"Those who sued us caught on video conspiring to create false fraud claims. Their lies end now," Raveendran said on X. "Watch this video where they say there's no fraud done by me but they have to make it look like there's fraud. Thanks to the well-wishers who sent me these videos. More to come."

The one-minute and 44-second-long video appears to be a screen recording of a Zoom call involving Byju's shareholders and lawyers.

The person speaking first in the video is Lomesh Kiran Nidumuri, partner and head of disputes (South India) at law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. He is heard discussing the strategy on how to move ahead with an insolvency petition filed against Byju's in the National Company Law Tribunal.

"While I do understand that we do not have direct evidence of material right now, but we need to draw a fine line because unless and until you treat fraud specifically, our ability to get a lot of injuncter beliefs go away," Nidumuri is heard as saying in the video. "So, I believe, we have to play that game a bit delicately..."

"The second thing is that more than the strategy on litigation that we are all discussing, the biggest bottleneck I believe is going to be signing of the petition and clearing of office objections before the NCLT."

"NCLT Bangalore is notorious when it comes to raising office objections, scrutiny and the time that it takes. So, we need to make sure the petition is absolutely kosher... Otherwise, you are looking at a lot of delay at the NCLT level itself," Nidumuri said.

Shankh Sengupta, partner and head of disputes and white-collar practice at Trilegal, follows up in the conversation.

"The idea of putting in those allegations in the draft (petition) was to show the shareholders what an ideal petition should look like, but we won't retain a large amount of allegations if we are not able to substantiate it with demonstrable proof," he is heard saying. "Having said that, we will still use language on submission that will indicate fraudulent behaviour on part of the management and the promoters."

Raveendran and his eponymous firm are fighting for its life after being put into the insolvency process in 2024.

In October last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal did not follow due legal procedure when it allowed a debt settlement between Byju’s and the Board of Cricket Control in India.

A lower bankruptcy court will now take up the case again, which in effect means other lenders can pursue claims against Byju’s and seek redress through a creditor-nominated resolution professional or overseer.