Byju’s ‘Fraudulent practice’ challenged by the Consumer Panel.

An applicant for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is asking for compensation from the
Indian edtech corporation Byju’s and Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan for alleged fraudulent behaviour and unfair trade practise. The District Consumer Disputes Redressal
Commission of Indore, a town in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, issued the directive.
The complainant, Priyanka Dixit, claimed that Shah Rukh Khan’s involvement in Byju’s
marketing persuaded her to sign up for the IAS tutoring programme. In 2021, she spent INR
1.08 lakh on the training. Her course was scheduled to begin on January 14, 2021, as
promised by the company, but it never did. The redressal commission ordered Byju’s to
refund Priyanka’s complete course fees plus 12% annual interest. It further demanded that
Khan and Byju pay her INR 5,000 in legal expenses and INR 50,000 in consolation and
mental distress. The panel further stated that the cash must be paid to Dixit jointly or
severally by the local manager of Byju’s in Indore and actor Khan.
Byju’s had already been in controversy with India’s top economic intelligence agency, the
Enforcement Directorate, for allegedly remitting overseas about INR 9,700 crore of the INR
28,000 crore in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) it received since 2011. On Saturday, the ED
undertook searches at the Bengaluru offices of a company tied to the edtech giant. The
Byju’s, on the other hand, referred to it as a standard investigation.