Jaipur Resort Files FIR Against OYO for Alleged GST Fraud Over Fake Bookings

A resort in Jaipur has filed an FIR against the travel booking platform OYO, alleging that GST notices worth crores were issued due to "incorrect" information provided by OYO, Indian Express reported.

Madan Jain of Samskara Resorts filed an FIR at Jaipur’s Ashok Nagar police station last week following a complaint. Jain reportedly stated that Samskara Resorts received a GST show cause notice for Rs 2.66 crore.

"This seems to be a case of GST dispute of the hotelier. He may not have paid GST on walk-in guests and is trying hard to involve OYO wrongly to deflect the matter. Our records clearly show that most of his bookings are walk-ins which his employees would have recorded directly. So, there is no basis for fake bookings. We are confident of getting the misleading FIR quashed," OYO said in an official statement. Adding that it’s clear that the complaint is against ‘unknown person’ and not Ritesh Agarwal.

The FIR

The Indian Express report claims that in the FIR, Madan Jain alleged that OYO inflated Samskara Resort’s sales by recording fraudulent bookings, some predating their agreement. Samskara signed a 12-month contract with OYO on April 18, 2019, during which the resort earned only ₹10.95 lakh in bookings and paid the applicable GST, as per the report.

However, OYO allegedly reported a business volume of ₹22.22 crore, leading the GST authorities to demand ₹2.66 crore in unpaid taxes and penalties.

OYO allegedly recorded bookings for Samskara Resort for the fiscal years 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21, despite no contract existing between them during those periods.

Hussain Khan, head of the Hotel Federation of Rajasthan, accused OYO of submitting inflated bills to the GST office, leading to notices issued to around 20 hotels. Citing OYO’s “bad record,” he told the Indian Express that four years ago, we had campaigned against it, with 125 hotels displaying banners outside stating that we are not accepting OYO bookings.