Mohit Goel, former director of Ringing Bells, the Noida-based company who brought world’s cheapest smartphone, Freedom 251, is now behind the bars for alleged fraud. Goel was arrested after Ghaziabad-based Ayam Enterprises filed a FIR on Wednesday asserting that Ringing Bells “defrauded” it for 16 lakh.
As per the FIR by Ayam Enterprises, the company has alleged that it was persuaded by Ringing Bells to take up the distributorship of the Freedom 251 smartphone in November 2015. The company then paid Rs 30 lakh to Ringing Bells through ‘RTGS’ on different occasions, but the people behind Freedom 251 only delivered products worth Rs 13 lakh only. The owners of Ayam Enterprises further claim that they were threatened with life if they asked for the rest Rs 16 lakh.
This is not the first time, Ringing Bells is in the news. In December last year, Mohit Goel and his wife, Dharna Goel, had quit their positions at Ringing Bells and formed a new company named as MDM Electronics Private Limited, which further raised suspicion of a possible scam with the Rs 251 smartphone. Starting from the launch of Freedom 251, the company has married into controversies as it was failed to deliver the product to the users who pre-booked the device.
Coming to the device, it was already alleged to be a revamped version of an Adcom device. Not only this, a company named Aryan Infratech Pvt Ltd recently filed a case against the company pertaining to a cheque bounce for a payment of about Rs 2 crores.