SC issues contempt notice to Cyberabad Police for coercive action against Qnet representatives

The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Cyberabad Police in Telangana on a contempt plea alleging violation of its orders of 'no-coercive action' and arrests of independent representatives of e-commerce company QNet.

A bench of justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran had issued a notice and sought a response from the state government.

The top court had also dispensed the presence of alleged contemnors and tagged the contempt petition with other pending matters for final disposal.

The contempt notice was issued on a plea of Vihaan Direct Selling Pvt Ltd, the Indian franchisee of QNet.

In the petition, it was alleged that despite the apex court's direction, independent representatives of the company were arrested by the Cyberabad Police on alleged charges of running a ponzi scheme.

The QNet Distributors Welfare Association had filed a petition before the Telangana High Court alleging that state police authorities were not following the state's notification on the Direct Selling Guidelines, 2017, and were indiscriminately registering criminal cases against the independent representatives of QNet's Indian sub-franchisee Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt. Ltd.

The franchisee claimed that the state guidelines were issued pursuant to an advisory issued by the central government's Department of Consumer Affairs.

The high court on February 6 had ordered the Telangana government, the Hyderabad Police Commissioner, and the Cyberabad Police Commissioner, to refrain from taking any action against the distributors of Qnet.

It said QNet's business is operating in India under the franchisee company Vihaan Direct Selling is in full compliance with the guidelines issued by Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs.

"The action taken by the police has no civil and criminal law conformance and is in direct contempt of the order granted by the Supreme Court of India that has directed all states including the state of Telangana to not take any coercive action against the company," the firm said.