Motivational speaker dupes several; SC seeks response

The Supreme Court has sought responses of the Centre, CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and others including 13 states on a plea alleging fraudulent activities by motivational speaker Vivek Bindra and his firm Bada Business Pvt Ltd.

Accusing the social media influencer and his firm of tricking people into giving them their money through a ponzi scheme that promised big returns, the petition sought a direction to the Centre to constitute a special investigation team (SIT) of the CBI to probe the case.

A bench comprising MM Sundresh and SVN Bhatti took note of the submissions of senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Shubham Chaudhary and 19 other petitioners, that Bindra and his firm have duped several people of their money.

“Application for exemption from filing official translation is allowed. Issue notice returnable in six weeks. Dasti (serving of summons personally without involving a process server) in addition,” the bench said in its order of February 26.

The plea said Bindra, a “self-declared motivational speaker”, and his marketing team “deceived the Petitioners and other thousands of youngsters, who hail from over a dozen different states from all over India”.

The petition said the modus operandi was that the accused used names of well known personalities on his websites, in banner advertisements, and extensively market the same by falsely representing that the said personalities were ‘Professors' in the paid courses run under the banner of Bada Business and Vivek Bindra.

“The extensive advertisements are being run on various social media platforms with the sole purpose of enrolling the youngsters for a course that misleadingly promised to train the enrolled candidates in the modes and methods of building a successful business through which one could earn anywhere  between Rs 15,000 and Rs 1,00,000 per month, failing which Vivek Bindra promised to refund the entire fee,” the plea said.

In order to lure innocent youngsters, Bindra also ran a 10-day MBA programme, it said.

“It is pertinent to mention here that the AICTE (All India council for technical education) vide public notice titled advisory against Fake MBA program targeting youth dated 28/12/2023 has categorically said ‘the MBA crash course offered by such individuals/organisations are misleading and inappropriate. All stakeholders/ students are advised to be cautious and do not fall prey to such fraudulent offers'...,” it said.

The AICTE advisory clearly points out the illegality in the courses run by Bindra and his company, it said.

The plea, which also made 13 states including Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh parties to the case, has sought a direction to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs “to constitute a special investigation team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the large-scale, nationwide scam perpetrated and done by one Bindra and Bada Business Pvt Ltd whereby he has duped and cheated the petitioners and other general public.”