Freedom251: not free from controversy yet

Adcom threatens legal action against RBPL, Ashok Chanda rejected any wrongdoing

The controversy related to Freedom251, world's cheapest smartphone, is intensifying. Adcom, the smartphone vendor from whom Ringing Bells (RBPL) procured the "dummy models" to showcase during the February 18 launch, has threatened legal action against RBPL, but Ashok Chadha, president of RBPL, rejected any wrongdoing.

According to Sanjeev Bhatia, founder and chairman, Advantage Computers (Adcom), although they sold some smartphone models (Ikon4) to Ringing Bells, they were not aware of its plan to resell the handsets.

"We are deeply grieved by this incident where our mobile phone has been presented to the masses for Rs 251, and therefore, will not hesitate from taking any legal actions against the company, in case the entire fiasco impacts Adcom's brand name or subsequently we face any other kind of losses," Bhatia added.

Freedom251 is claimed to be the cheapest smartphone priced at Rs 251 by a six month old Delhi-registered company Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd. While, Mohit Goel, the promoter and managing director of RBPL remains more involved backend operations. Chadha, the other face of Freedom251, remains involved in dealing media queries.

"We would like to clarify that they provided some prototypes for the sample Freedom- 251 handed to some special guests including media for initial impression about the way phone would look and behave in future. We have other partners for assembly of our phones", he said through a statement today.

However, confusion remains even after Chadha's new claims as ever. Over the past two weeks, origin of Freedom251 has changed several times - from local self-manufacturing to importing from Taiwan to procurement through OEMs (original equipment manufacturer).

Now according to Ringing Bells, they have tied-up with two partners in Noida, Uttar Pradesh and Janakpuri, New Delhi to procure the initial lot of Freedom251. The partners will be assembling the smartphones now as RBPL's own manufacturing units are yet to come up.

RBPL's corporate office - which the company claimed to be its main premise for all major operations and where all its documents and books of accounts could be found, along with its key officials, any time - became a topic of controversy too. While, last week the office at Sector 63 in Noida was found closed.

Chadha, however, claimed today that it was due to dispute between authorities in Noida and landlord of the property. "We wish to make it clear that the current dispute regarding the nature of business conducted at the property is between NOIDA authority and our landlord".

Incidentally, the company's registered office in Delhi's Gandhi market is not occupied by RBPL, neither the company had any legal agreement with the owner of that property.