Former Paytm executive Sonia Dhawan, who was one of the main defendants in an extortion against the company’s founder backed by SoftBank, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, has rejoined the company in a surprising turn of events.
Dhawan, who spent about five months in jail with her husband Rupak Jain, returned to the company earlier this week, the sources said. The Allahabad High Court granted him bail earlier this month.
The arrest of Dhawan, the company’s former vice president of communications and public relations, had caused ripples throughout the corporate world. She had been associated with the company for almost a decade, beginning as Sharma’s personal assistant and becoming the director of public relations over the years. The developments have also led to various conspiracy theories.
Her lawyer had said that Paytm’s promoters were pressuring her to sell her stake in the company and that she had been framed. “With the kind of accusations that were made initially, there is a lot of contradiction. There was also a statement in the press that the caller from Calcutta revealed his name (Sonia Dhawan) without even receiving a substantial part of the ransom. Then, you can definitely see that there is more than meets the eye, “he added.
She also said that Sonia and her husband had received an extortion call for 5 million rupees on September 22, two days after Sharma received a similar call. “There was a call to extortion for the increase of Rs.5 The person who called threatened to harm the family if the demand was not met,” Tripathi revealed.
According to the data shared by PaperVc with Moneycontrol, Dhawan had plans to purchase stock for employees (ESOP) worth 0.004 percent in One97 Communications and 0.02 percent in Paytm E-commerce Pvt Ltd, the two companies of the group. The cumulative value of the shares according to Paytm’s valuation at that time remained around the crore of Rs 3.2. He was expected to have more ESOP in other entities of the group.
The relatives of Dhawan had also said that she was involved.
Source : News18