NEW DELHI: Ashneer Grover, former managing director at BharatPe, and his wife, Madhuri Jain, were stopped from boarding a flight to New York from Delhi airport on Thursday afternoon as they had a lookout circular (LOC) issued against them in a case being investigated by Delhi Police.The lookout circular, sources said, was opened last week and Grover has now been called for questioning next week.

"They were detained before a security check and asked to return to their Delhi residence and join the investigation at the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) office at Mandir Marg next week.

The LOC was only to prevent them from travelling abroad.

They were not arrested," a senior officer said.Grover issued a statement on X, saying that they were travelling to New York and were stopped at the immigration.

"I had not received any communication or summons from EOW since FIR in May till 8am today morning (7 hours after returning from the airport).

I was going to the US from 16-23 November.

They said there was an LOC against me and they were checking," he stated."I found it strange as have travelled four times internationally since FIR filed in May - never been a problem and I had not even been summoned once.

Flight left in meantime anyways - EOW directed Immigration to let us out so that we can return home.

Today morning EOW summons was home delivered - will cooperate as always," he said while adding that he was not a flight risk and would approach court in this regard.EOW had filed an FIR in May against the couple and some of their family members for alleged misappropriation of funds and causing losses worth Rs 81 crore to Resilient Innovations Private Limited (RIPL), which runs BharatPe.The complaint, filed by BharatPe, alleged Grover and his family misused the company's fund through forged documents.

It has been alleged that the accused were involved in criminal misappropriation of company's funds on the basis of various forged, fabricated documents and resultant payments to non-existent firms, vendors and HR consultancy firms without rendering any services.Specific allegations have been made that Grover used backdated invoices in the name of ghost firms to siphon off funds.

Many of the firms allegedly had the same address and dubious owners.

The bank accounts mentioned on those invoices apparently didn't exist on the date mentioned in the invoice corroborating that they were prepared later.

Grover has denied the charges.