On Tuesday, Byju’s found itself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons yet again. This time, the company’s troubles stem from Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) “violations”.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a show-cause notice to the company’s parent, Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd, and founder, Byju Raveendran, for alleged FEMA violations to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore, CNBC-TV18 reported, citing sources.

This development follows the ED's actions in April, which included searches and seizures at three premises in Bengaluru linked to Byju Raveendaran and Think & Learn under FEMA provisions. “During the searches, various incriminating documents and digital data was seized,” the Enforcement Directorate had said.

At the time, the searches had revealed that the company had received foreign direct investment to the tune of about Rs 28,000 crore from 2011 to 2023, according to The Economic Times. The company had also “remitted Rs 9,754 crore (approx.) to various foreign jurisdictions during the same period in the name of overseas direct investment. The company has booked around Rs 944 crore in the name of advertisement and marketing expenses including the amount remitted to foreign jurisdiction.” (For more context, read: ED searches Byju’s premises over alleged FEMA violations)

Coming back to the latest show-cause notice. Byju’s was swift in denying the development, saying that “the company has not received any such communication from the Enforcement Department”. However, later in the day, the ED confirmed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that a show-cause notice has indeed been issued for an amount of Rs 9,362.35 crore.

In hot water: This development adds to the pile of problems that the beleaguered edtech giant faces, including issues of corporate governance, valuation downgrades, layoffs, cash crunch, high-level exits, an auditor calling it quits and, of course, its $1.2 billion term loan B headache.

While efforts are on to resolve the loan problem (also read: Selling Epic and Great Learning won’t solve Byju’s cash flow problem), a fresh lawsuit in another American court has complicated matters for the company. The company is reportedly in “advanced talks” for Epic’s sale for about $400 million—a seeming fire sale considering that the company paid $500 million to bag Epic in 2021.

Additionally, back home, while Davidson Kempner was gearing up to take control of Aakash, Manipal Group chairman Ranjan Pai reportedly injected Rs 1,400 crore to clear Byju’s debt to the US-based investment firm.

Earlier this month, the company also released its much-delayed results for the year ended March 2022. However, these were only standalone results for its core business, which make little sense now as much of the scenario seems to have changed for the firm. For more context read: The inanity of Byju’s partial earnings release

National Herald case: In another major development on Tuesday, the Enforcement Directorate attached properties worth Rs 751.9 crore as part of its ongoing money laundering probe against two companies linked to the Congress-promoted National Herald newspaper.

The order was issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against the newspaper's publisher, Associated Journals, and its holding company, Young Indian, the ED said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

“Investigation revealed that M/s. Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL) is in possession of proceeds of crime in the form of immovable properties spread across many cities of India such as Delhi, Mumbai and Lucknow to the tune of Rs. 661.69 Crore and M/s. Young Indian (YI) is in possession of proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs. 90.21 Crore in the form of investment in equity shares of AJL,” the post added.

The case originated from a private complaint filed by Subramanian Swamy of the Bharatiya Janata Party in a Delhi court back in 2013, according to The Indian Express. Swamy's complaint accused Sonia and Rahul Gandhi of cheating and misappropriation of funds related to the acquisition of the newspaper.