Rajesh Agarwal, co-founder of Indian mobile company Micromax Informatics Ltd (erstwhile Micromax Technologies), may face his biggest challenge.
Agarwal, who has been arrested by CBI in a bribery case on Wednesday, has quit from all his duties at Micromax. On Thursday, he was sent to CBI custody for seven days (till August 14).
He has been mentor and promoter of the company for more than 22 years, taking all the strategic decisions.
Third largest seller
The company entered the industry in 2000 as a software entity when three of his friends — Sumit Arora, Rahul Sharma and Vikas Jain — ventured together to script the success story of Micromax which then evolved as a mobile brand in the telecom space.
Today, it is the third largest mobile phone seller (8.9 per cent) and second largest smartphone seller in the Indian market (January-April by CyberMedia Research).
However, no one knew that such an issue would come up, casting a blot on the company.
Agarwal and his associate Manish Tuli were arrested by the CBI when they were allegedly giving a bribe of Rs 30 lakh to officials of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation for regularisation of an unauthorised property.
Apart from them, North Delhi Municipal Corporation’s three junior engineers — Satish Kumar, Naresh Kumar and Sanjay Kumar — were arrested. An engineer with Delhi Development Authority, Rajesh Gupta, and a private person Ashok Lamba were also arrested.
On a tip-off, CBI raided the meeting area (Timarpur, Delhi) and, while on search, found Rs 73 lakh in cash from one of the engineers’ residence said a CBI official.
CBI said an FIR was registered on information that Agarwal and Tuli had entered into a deal with engineers of the civic body to get clearance for construction of the banquet hall in Wazirpur area in exchange for a bribe of Rs 50 lakh, which came down to Rs 30 lakh.
Legal proceedings
Meanwhile, Micromax in a statement said that Agarwal has been let off his duties and recused himself from his responsibilities.
“He will focus on legal proceedings to clear his name of the alleged charges,” it said.
The company also clarified that Manish Tuli has no association with the company.
“Rajesh Agarwal was present in his personal capacity with Manish Tuli,” it added.
According to analysts, though Agarwal’s role was not that strategic over the last few months, his career might be at stake in future.
“He was one of the main officials to take care of procurements from China (to get the best handsets to India) but that is being taken care of by Rahul Sharma now,” said an analyst, requesting anonymity. Such incidents of a company going wrong on senior officials would not impact the brand or market share, he added.