According to people familiar with the matter, India sought reasons from Byju’s, the country’s most valuable startup backed by Tiger Global Management, for not yet filing its audited financial accounts for the year ended March 2021.
Earlier this month, the country’s corporate affairs ministry sent a letter to Byju’s parent company to explain the seventeen-month delay in filing audited accounts, the people said, not being named as the information is private. .
The delay in filing is due to consolidation of accounts of several companies that the online education provider has acquired during the accounting year, the company has replied to the MCA, said one of the people. Byju’s, backed by Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, was on a spree for rapid expansion globally, buying several startups in the US and elsewhere.
Ved Jain, former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, said that an unlisted company has to file its annual accounts within seven months of the end of the financial year, after which they have to pay an additional fee for each day of delay. Is. Founder of Ved Jain & Associates. Delay of more than 17 months in filing is rare and prompted the letter from MCA.
Jain said, “In case of inordinate delay in filing annual accounts, the company and its directors are liable for penalty as well as prosecution. Normally, prosecution is filed when the delay exceeds two years. Is.”
Emails to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Byju’s spokespersons did not go through.
The Bengaluru-based edtech pioneer, formally known as Think & Learn Pvt, has a valuation of $22 billion, according to market researcher CB Insights. Chief Executive Officer Byju Raveendran, 41, a teacher himself and the son of school teachers, founded the education startup in 2015.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.
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