Arun Pandey Rhiti Group – Scammer who Blamed MS Dhoni for His Crimes (2024)

Arun Pandey claims on his LinkedIn profile that to make sports and entertainment an essential component of daily life, he formed Rhiti Group, an integrated sports and entertainment conglomerate, in 2007. In India, sports and celebrity management have undergone a revolution because of his contributions to image counseling and brand management services.

Along with his staff, he has assisted several athletes, like Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Pragyan Ojha, Ankush Bains, Virat Singh, Himanshu Rana, and KL Rahul, establishing themselves as “brands.” They also worked on the movie MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, which starred the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and chronicled the inspirational life of cricket’s living icon MS Dhoni.

They were also the first to introduce NFT to India through the platform Beyondlife.club. Amitabh Bachchan, a famous actor in Bollywood, was the first to introduce the NFT line on their site. Their love of sports and entertainment fuels their desire to change the world for the better. 

Amrapali Homebuyers Blame MS Dhoni for Their Scam

The 39-year-old has argued before the Supreme Court that he is a victim, despite purchasers’ demands that he be included as one of the conspirators of the real estate fraud.

Homebuyers of the Amrapali project, which Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni has supported for more than six years, accuse the former captain of colluding with the realtor and defrauding them of millions of rupees as he retires from international competition. 

Jitender Kumar, along with many other homebuyers, claimed in his FIR filed with the Economic Offence Wing (EoW), Delhi Police,

MS Dhoni represented himself to be a brand ambassador of the said project and aggressively promoted and fraudulent activities of the accused persons which lured the gullible buyers like me to invest in the said project, therefore, he is part of a criminal conspiracy hatchet.” The project, Amrapali Leisure Park, was launched in Greater Noida in 2010.

Similar worries have been voiced by numerous other homeowners. When I saw Dhoni in an advertisement for the project, I thought that if such a credible face was associated with this brand, the builder will also be credible, and I was confident of taking possession of my flat, according to Rupesh Kumar Singh, another buyer of O2 Valley, an Amrapali project in Greater Noida (West). But it never materialized. Because of Dhoni, I was tricked,” Singh claimed. He has also sought that Dhoni be added as an accuser in the case in his FIR.

Dhoni, 39, has argued before the Supreme Court that he is a victim because the builder hasn’t yet paid the entire endorsement money, which is interesting. After all, homeowners have demanded that he be named as one of the participants in the real estate fraud. The SC is still considering the case.

The Amrapali Group, which was founded in 2003, established itself as a major participant by 2010 and introduced more than 40 real estate projects in Delhi NCR between 2010 and 2016.

To entice clients to its projects, the corporation featured Dhoni’s name and image in all of its commercials. By 2018, 42,000 homebuyers across all projects had discovered a scam and had filed petitions in several judicial forums, including the top court.

The builder launched 150 firms and stole the money raised to finish real estate projects, the SC learned after reviewing the case. In a 2019 ruling, the SC ordered the dismissal of the company’s promoters and the appointment of a court receiver. It requested that the ongoing building work be completed by the government-owned corporation NBCC.

The SC further noted that its forensic auditors had discovered that Amrapali had entered into “fake” contracts with Amrapali Mahi Developers Private Limited and Rhiti Sports Management Private Limited. While Sakshi, Dhoni’s wife, serves as a director of Amrapali Mahi Developers Private Limited, Dhoni has significant investments in Rhiti. According to the audited report, Amrapali Group gave Rhiti a total of Rs 42.22 crores between 2009 and 2015.

The forensic audit report, which the SC quoted in its decision, stated that “We feel that Home Buyers money has been diverted illegally and wrongly to Rhiti Sports Management Private Limited and should be recovered from them as the said Agreement in our opinion does not stand the test of Law.”

The SC demanded that all of these businesses, including Rhiti Sports and Amrapali Mahi Developers Private Limited, refund the money to raise the necessary funds to complete the remaining project.

“Dhoni’s lawyer has opposed the audit report in a counter affidavit in SC and claimed that he is a victim as the builder hasn’t paid his full endorsement fee,” said Senior Advocate ML Lahoty, who represents homeowners’ groups in SC.

The judge will determine whether or not his counter-affidavit is credible, he continues. However, I don’t believe he will succeed in his request. A significant portion of the 42,000 customers would have bought because of Dhoni because he is a well-known figure. He may be held accountable for his involvement with the builder.

“I am really surprised to learn that Dhoni has filed a counter-affidavit and requested more money from the builder,” said another buyer, Digvijay Singh. Instead of keeping the money he received as his endorsement fee, he ought to have accepted moral responsibility for his error and returned it all. Is he not profiting from our suffering and misery? It is unfortunate.

Amrapali Housing Scam: Supreme Court Notifies MS Dhoni and Stays Arbitral Proceedings

Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya, and Ajay Kumar, the former group directors of Amrapali, are currently detained per the ruling of the supreme court.

The batsman was the brand ambassador for the now-defunct real estate company, Amrapali Group of Companies when he filed an arbitration case against them over a money issue, and the case was stayed by the Supreme Court.

To “illegally divert” home buyers’ money, Amrapali Group entered into “sham agreements” with Rhiti Sports Management Pvt Ltd (RSMPL), which promotes the brand of Dhoni, according to forensic auditors hired by the Supreme Court. From 2009 to 2015, a total of Rs 42.22 crore was paid to RSMPL.

Dhoni filed a petition with the Delhi High Court, which on October 16, 2019, appointed Veena Birbal, a former judge there, as the sole arbitrator to settle the business dispute between the player and the real estate company.

The court-appointed receiver informed a bench made up of justices U U Lalit and Bela M Trivedi about the ongoing arbitration processes between Dhoni and the defunct real estate enterprises and the challenges he would face in pursuing them.

The high court stated in the judgment that it had taken cognizance of the issues in order to protect the interests of the home buyers and had appointed a court receiver to oversee the timely completion of housing projects and the distribution of units to the buyers.

“Given these, it would be very challenging for the receiver to handle and defend such litigations…The Amrapali group of enterprises cannot be expected to be represented by the former management or anybody else before the learned sole arbitrator, the bench said.

The highest court gave notice to the cricketer and asked Justice Birbal “to hold her hands” and stop the arbitration.

Dhoni filed a petition with the top court in April 2019 asking for protection of his ownership rights over a more than 5,500-square-foot penthouse he reserved in an Amrapali Group project more than ten years prior.

Dhoni received a sizable quantity of money from the real estate company in exchange for serving as its brand ambassador, according to attorney M. L. Lahoty, who is also involved in the case. “We had at that stage argued that the amount was to be recovered,” he said, adding that “the issue of retrieving of money is going on in the apex court.”

The apex court has been keeping an eye on several housing developments being constructed by the NBCC in place of the defunct real estate business.

By canceling Amrapali Group’s registration under the real estate code RERA and evicting it from desirable properties in the NCR by removing land leases, the top court gave errant builders the boot for betraying the faith placed in them by homebuyers.

Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya, and Ajay Kumar, the former group directors of Amrapali, are currently incarcerated per the ruling of the supreme court.

More than 42,000 Amrapali Group home buyers were relieved by the court’s decision to order the Enforcement Directorate to investigate allegations of money laundering by real estate agents.

The top court subsequently ordered the state-run NBCC to finish the abandoned projects of the Amrapali Group while it works to get funding for them.

Dhoni-backed Any “sham deals” between Rhiti Sports and Amrapali are refuted

MS Dhoni’s organization, Rhiti Sports Management, which was once a brand ambassador for the real estate developer Amrapali Group and involved in the deals, has denied any wrongdoing.

In its decision to revoke the Amrapali Group’s license on Tuesday, the Supreme Court cited a forensic investigation into the organization and said that it had entered into “sham” agreements with businesses backed by Dhoni and his wife in order to transfer homebuyers’ funds.

The former India captain’s endorsement deals were handled through Rhiti Sports. All of the transactions between 2009 and 2015 in which Dhoni promoted Amrapali’s brand, according to its managing director Arun Pandey, were legitimate.

The endorsement agency was Rhiti, and we were hired on a commission basis. According to the court’s findings, the Amrapali Group of companies paid Rhiti Sports Management Rs 42.22 crore between 2009 and 2015, according to the forensic audit conducted by Pawan Kumar Aggarwal & Ravinder Bhatia. “We have all documents to prove that the transactions done by Rhiti Sports were bonafide and backed by proper agreements at both levels,” he told ET in response to the findings.

Rhiti later asserted, however, that the observations mentioned in the forensic report (alone) are “bereft of proper information” or “relevant documents”.

The company claimed to have all the data and pertinent records necessary to prove its good reputation and the veracity of the observations stated in the aforementioned report.

Dhoni owns the majority of Rhiti Sports, while his wife Sakshi serves as a director of Amrapali Mahi Developers, which the audit report claims was formed to build a Ranchi project. The report states that Amrapali Mahi Developers paid all of its expenses in cash and got all of its share capital in cash.

The court judgment added, quoting the auditors’ report, “An MoU was also entered into between the parties (for the project), though we were not provided a copy of that.

Dhoni served as the Amrapali firm’s brand ambassador and engaged in a variety of business dealings to support the projects of the firm. The audit report stated that he also made arrangements with other group companies.

The court noted that there was “no resolution” on file authorizing Sharma to engage into agreements on behalf of all group entities in relation to Amrapali Sapphire Developers’ payment of Rs 6.52 crore to Rhiti Sports under agreements signed by group chairman Anil Kumar Sharma.

The money from homebuyers had been improperly and illegally transferred to Rhiti Sports, according to the 270-page ruling by justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit, and “should be recovered from them as the said agreement in our opinion does not stand the test of law.”

According to Arun Pandey, the issue of siphoning was not raised because the company supplied all services in accordance with agreements and paid the appropriate endorsers their agreed-upon endorsement price.

He declared that Rhiti Sports was looking at legal options in this regard.

He added that before the forensic auditors were even hired, Rhiti Sports filed court cases with the Delhi High Court in March of last year and the Supreme Court in August to recover around Rs 40 crore in unpaid debts owed to Amrapali.

Links between MS Dhoni and Arun Pandey extend beyond Rhiti Sports

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the captain of the Indian cricket team. Rhiti Sports Management and its main promoter, Arun Pandey, may dispute that Dhoni owns any stock in the company, but they cannot dispute that Arun Pandey and Dhoni have been and are still business partners, raising the possibility of a conflict of interest for the Indian captain.

Paperwork submitted to the Ministry of corporate affairs by at least two additional companies demonstrates that Dhoni and his family had stock in companies where Arun Pandey and Rhiti Sports were the only partners. 

Given this, there is a conflict of interest between Dhoni managing Team India players (Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, and Pragyan Ojha) and Dhoni having a role in their selection, whether or not Dhoni has any direct stake in Rhiti Sports. This is because Dhoni’s financial interests coincide with those of Arun Pandey.

Arun Pandey failed to reply to a thorough questionnaire that was issued to him.

Rhiti MSD Alamode Pvt Ltd., one of these businesses, was floated as a result of a decision made by the Rhiti Sports board on March 22, 2012. 10,000 shares of the firm, which was incorporated on April 3, 2012, were issued, of which Dhoni owned 6,400 and his wife Sakshi owned 100. Arun Pandey controlled another 3,000 shares, and through Pandey, Rhiti Sports held 500. As a result, Dhoni and his wife had 65% of the shares, while Arun Pandey and Rhiti Sports held 35%.

The three directors of this company were Arun Pandey‘s mother Subhawati Pandey, who also serves as a director of Rhiti Sports, Pratima Tiwari (Pandey’s sister), and Sakshi. Rhiti MSD Alamode and Rhiti Sports share the same registered office at Flat No. 7514, Sector-D, Pocket-7, Ground Floor, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi.

One Mohd. Nazim Khan, who was also Rhiti Sports’ company secretary when that business was founded in 2007, was given the authority to complete the required papers for the company’s incorporation.

Less than a year after its incorporation, Rhiti MSD Alamode’s board of directors decided to approve the creation of a new joint venture called Sportsfit World Overseas Pvt Ltd on March 15, 2013. The allotment of 30,000 shares to Dhoni by Rhiti Sports, which the business maintains was purely temporary, happened just a week later.

On March 26, this year, Sportsfit World Overseas was incorporated. Rhiti MSD Alamode controlled 7,300 shares or 73% of the total 10,000 shares, Arun Pandey held 100 shares, and Sajid Shamim, the son of the aforementioned Mohd Nazim, held the remaining 2,600 shares. The Dhoni family owned 65% of Rhiti MSD Alamode, which translated to the Indian captain essentially owning around 47.5% of Sportsfit stock. The company’s inaugural directors were selected as Arun Pandey and Sajid Shamim.

The firm address is identical to that of Rhiti Sports and Rhiti MSD Alamode once more. According to the paperwork, Subhawati is the owner of this apartment, and her son is required under a lease signed by Sportsfit to pay her a monthly rent of Rs 1,000 in addition to paying her energy and water bills.

Rhiti MSD-N Motor Sports India Pvt Ltd, a company that promotes motorcycle racing, is another link in the Rhiti-Dhoni network. Nandish Shivanna Domlur and Amit Sandill, two businessmen from Bangalore, founded this company as N-Motor Sports India Pvt Ltd on April 23, 2012, with a Rs 5 crore authorized share capital. Domlur was supposed to buy 49.5 lakh shares, and Sandill was supposed to buy the final 50,000 shares. Both wrote to the Karnataka registrar of companies on the same day, promising to deliver their respective stock stakes “within a period of two months from the date of the company’s incorporation.” Both were made company directors.

According to records, the Rhiti MSD Alamode board decided to invest Rs 2.25 crore in N-Motor Sports on July 31, 2012. Strangely, the heading at the top of the paper reads “certified true copy of the resolution passed at the meeting of the board of directors of Rhiti Sports Management” even though it was submitted by Rhiti MSD Alamode on its letterhead and was signed by Pratima Tiwari on its behalf. We assume that this was a reasonable typing error given the large several businesses with the same address, directors, and names). The board also decided to permit N-Motor Sports, “an affiliate company,” to use the name “Rhiti MSD” the next day.

In response, N-Motor Sports decided to alter the business’s name to Rhiti MSD-N Sports India Pvt Ltd in a board meeting on August 1, 2012, which was ratified in a company EGM on August 20. On August 31, Arun Pandey and his mother Subhawati were elected as the firm’s directors, firmly placing it under the umbrella.

Although the shareholding structure is not disclosed in the company’s documents, given the name, Rhiti MSD Alamode’s investment, and the fact that the Pandeys are now in charge, it is obvious that the company is a part of the larger Arun Pandey-Dhoni business empire.

Rhiti Sports’ enormous rise with Dhoni’s pal Arun Pandey

The BCCI working committee held extensive discussions about the necessity to crack down on player agents shortly after the spot-fixing scandal surfaced, and President N Srinivasan stressed the importance of giving agents certification.

What Srinivasan failed to see is that Arun Pandey, the manager of his franchise and best friend of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, managed to draw some attention with his constant presence.

Many cricketers and authorities jokingly refer to him as “Agent Arun” because he manages numerous Indian players, with his best friend Dhoni serving as the headline attraction.

In 2012, a part-time left-arm spinner named Pandey was rolling his arm over in the Feroze Shah Kotla nets while wearing the practice attire of the Chennai Super Kings, which the BCCI mentions when discussing players keeping their distance from their agents during cricket commitments.

Prior to the Delhi Daredevils’ IPL home matchup against the Chennai Super Kings, this occurred. Arun Pandey Rhiti Group was observed bowling for close to 45 minutes, despite the fact that he most clearly wasn’t a member of the support staff.

When Arun Pandey participated in a few matches for Bihar in the beginning of the previous decade, he met Dhoni. The relationship got stronger as Dhoni, who was just starting out in first-class cricket, sometimes stayed at Pandey’s residence while visiting Delhi to participate in local competitions.

Pandey got the rewards in the mirrored brilliance of the Indian skipper once Dhoni became a megastar in Indian cricket. He was so influential that he joined Dhoni and RP Singh in a television ad for a cement company. Nobody understood what Pandey’s locus standi was in terms of overseeing players’ finances, so when it was claimed that he had signed Dhoni for a huge sum for his company Rhiti Sports, it immediately attracted attention.

However, those who covered the Ranji Trophy game between Railways and Uttar Pradesh in 2011 at the Mohan Meakin venue in Ghaziabad witnessed Pandey arrive with a sizable birthday cake at the conclusion of the day’s play. RP Singh may have terminated his professional links with Rhiti now.

The cake was to be cut just for the players and officials at the players’ temporary dining area. Since the match was still going on, nobody questioned what a “outsider” was doing there.

Arun Pandey’s claim to fame in the world of cricket, thanks to Dhoni, has quickly arisen, but the captain now has to deal with some uneasy issues when the conflict-of-interest rumors surfaced.

Arun Pandey Rhiti Group – Scammer who Blamed MS Dhoni for His Crimes (2024)

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