Franchisee scam: SC refuses to consider plea seeking CBI, ED probe

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to further consider a plea by a group of people seeking a probe by the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and SFIO into what they called the "biggest franchisee scam of the country".

"We will not adjudicate this. Go to jurisdictional High Court," a bench, presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde, told advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, appearing for the petitioners.

The counsel, for his part, said the court had already issued a notice in the matter.

"We made a mistake in issuing notice. We have no problem in admitting our mistake. (Do) you want to withdraw or not?" the bench further asked the counsel.

The court then dismissed the matter, giving the petitioners the liberty to approach the High Court.

In their plea, the group alleged they had been cheated and duped of their hard-earned money by 'Westland Trade Private Limited' which floated bogus companies like Hyper Supermarket, Hyper Mart, Big Mart Super Mart, Louies Salon, Midnight Cafe, Franchisee World, BM Mart, H Mart and S Mart etc.

The court had earlier sought a response from the Union Home Ministry, Finance Ministry, CBI, ED, SFIO, Police Commissioner of Delhi, Police Commissioner of Noida and Police Commissioner of Gurugram on the plea made through three separate sets of petitions by victims of fraud from as many as 18 states.

According to the petitioners, about 53 companies were set up throughout the country and around 500 innocent investors were duped of more than Rs 300 crores.

The main company took Rs 3 lakh to run a grocery store in May 2019. It opened stores in Karnataka, Telangana, Goa, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, MP, Delhi and many other states, according to the petition. However, in April this year, the company defaulted in payment, leaving about 500 investors high and dry.

The petitioners sought an investigation into criminal economic offences like cheating, fraud, forgery, money laundering, benami transactions, amassing of disproportionate assets, among others, committed by the fraudsters involved in the 'gargantuan franchisee scam'.