Ringing Bells owner, president booked

NOIDA: A case was registered on Tuesday against Mohit Goel, the owner of Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, and Ashok Chadha, the president of the company that has promised Freedom 251, claimed to be the 'world's most affordable smartphone, following a complaint lodged by BJP MP Kirit Somaiya.

Somaiya is also a member of the parliamentary public accounts committee.

The FIR was filed under sections 302/2016; 420 of IPC and under Section 66 of the IT Act. GB Nagar SSP Kiran S confirmed to TOI that investigations have been started in the case following the FIR. A copy of the FIR is with TOI.

Freedom 251 smartphone, priced at Rs 251, was launched on February 17 in the presence of senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi and defence minister Manohar Parrikar.

The phone was launched as the 'world's cheapest smart phone', and tagged as a 'Startup India' and 'Make in India' initiative. The phone was launched by a newly floated company, Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, with its office at B-44 Sector 63.

The complaint by Somaiya, an MP from Mumbai Northeast constituency, stated that "no permission" was taken from his committee before the launch of such a "Make In India" scheme and called it a "ponzi scam". The complaint demanded the registration of a criminal case against Mohit Goel for alleged cheating, forgery, and misleading campaign for Freedom 251 across the national media and has urged police to book Goel and Chaddha for fraud against small investors and the common man.

In the FIR, Somaiya called the promotion of the phone was a 'trick' to misuse the 'Make In India' scheme, "to gain the government's sympathy".

He pointed out the alleged misuse of the tricolour in the promotion of the phone. "Such advertisements cannot be placed without the permission of the Bureau of Indian Standards. We also found out that the company does not have a licence to trade in the mentioned phone and it has not declared its financial or human resources to manufacture the phone," Somaiya said in the FIR.

He urged police to immediately freeze all the bank accounts of the company and the individuals involved in it.

Commenting on the FIR on Wednesday, Mohit Goel told TOI, "I'm in my hometown for Holi and I am ready to answer any questions on Freedom 251. I shall start delivering the phones soon and complete the deliveries by June end as promised." Gautam Budh Nagar SSP Kiran S told TOI that the investigations have started. "We will now take up the case on all the points mentioned in the FIR," Kiran S said.

Echoing the SSP's announcement on the probe, SP (City) Dinesh Yadav said, "Arrests will be made as soon as the validity of all the complaints are established."

TOI first broke the news of Ringing Bells's complete lack of infrastructure after its mega launch when Mohit Goel had said that he had already received 25 lakh phones online and had registered 7.5 crore bookings online at the rate of Rs 251 plus Rs 40 delivery charges. TOI further investigated to find that promissory notes worth Rs251 were sold in interior villages for booking the phone in advance in cash transactions. After this, Goel claimed that the company was looking at 25 lakh online bookings and 25 lakh offline bookings. He had stated that he would deliver the 50 lakh phones from April 10 and complete the delivery by June 30. However, he had no factory facilities or employees. After this expose, Goel announced a refund of all money collected online by the payment gateways. Meanwhile the fund transfer from the payment gateways to Ringing Bells was stopped by an instruction by the Enforement Directorate (ED).