Founder and Group CEO of OYO Ritesh Agarwal.
Credit: X/@riteshagar
After receiving a wrong GST notice due to 'incorrect' information provided by OYO, a resort in Rajasthan's Jaipur has filed an FIR against the multinational travel booking platform.
According to a report by The Indian Express, Madan Jain, associated with the Samskara Resorts, filed a complaint after which an FIR was lodged at the Ashok Nagar police station.
In the FIR, Jain mentioned that 'to show an inflated annual turnover, thousands of fake bookings were shown in the name of Samskara Resorts'.
Jain asserted that Samskara Resorts received a GST show cause notice of Rs 2.66 crore.
According to the publication's report, Jain has named Oravel Stays Private Limited (OYO), Ritesh Agarwal, the CEO of OYO and several others in the FIR.
The FIR against OYO has been lodged under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery and criminal conspiracy.
According to the FIR, Samskara Resort provided its services via online booking and walk-ins. Jain also said that Samskara and OYO had signed an agreement on April 18, 2019 for 12 months, but the latter allegedly showed bookings done in Samskara from 2018-2021.
According to The Indian Express, the FIR also states that from April 18, 2019 till April 20, 2020, OYO provided Samskara a business of Rs 10.95 lakh for which GST was paid by the resort in Jaipur.
However, OYO allegedly showed a business of Rs 22.22 crore with Samskara and claimed that GST of Rs 2.66 crore is pending to be paid.
President of Hotel Federation of Rajasthan, Husain Khan claimed that about 20 hotels have received GST notices due to alleged inflated bills provided by OYO.
According to the publication's report, Khan also said that four years ago they had campaigned against it when 125 hotels displayed banners stating that they are no longer accepting OYO bookings and that the booking platform has had a 'poor record' with hotels.