The Delhi International Airport is said to have stood witness to the dramatic detention of a serial startup founder last week. According to multiple sources Inc42 spoke to, Ankit Maheshwari was picked up by police soon after he disembarked an international flight and flown to Kolkata, where he was arrested on charges of alleged fraud.

The Dataisgood founder was presented before the Calcutta High Court on September 26, the sources told Inc42, refusing to be quoted in a subjudice matter.

But, what played behind the unfolding of the arrest saga remains unclear. Inc42 has reviewed an FIR filed in May 2025 by Kantika Mukherjee, a resident of Kolkata, whose LinkedIn profile shows her as the deputy director of LawSikho, another brand run by Skill Arbitrage. Delhi NCR-based edtech platform Skill Arbitrage’s parent entity had acquired Dataisgood in 2023.

The FIR (reviewed by Inc42), lodged at Kolkata’s Kalighat Police Station, alleged that Maheshwari, cofounder Shishir Singh, and a few others were involved in cheating, criminal conspiracy, misuse of investment funds, and data theft.

Both Maheshwari and Singh had filed for anticipatory bail at the Calcutta High Court. However, on September 1, Justice Jay Sengupta rejected their bail pleas due to the seizure of incriminating evidence suggesting suspected malpractices.

The duo moved the Supreme Court on September 24, only to be turned down yet again. The apex court, however, granted the founders three weeks to surrender and apply for regular bail. The dramatic events at the Delhi airport indicated that Maheshwari had gone abroad in defiance of the court order. He is now in police custody in Kolkata, according to his family.

The family, however, denied all allegations. “The FIR is motivated, and the allegations are not correct. The matter is before the court. We have faith in the judicial process and cannot comment more at this juncture. We are hopeful that truth will prevail, and we will get justice,” Maheshwari’s father Anil Maheshwari told Inc42 in a written statement.

Now, the big question is what really went down at Dataisgood and why Skill Arbitrage went after the founders.

Reconstructing The Events

The story begins six years back, when Ankit Maheshwari and Shishir Singh rolled out Dataisgood as a platform to train aspirants in data science with a 100% placement guarantee.

By 2023, Addictive Learning Technologies, the parent entity of Skill Arbitrage and LawSikho, stepped into the ring, picking up 100% of Dataisgood in a $3 Mn part-cash, part-stock deal, according to sources.

Skill Arbitrage itself was on a growth path then, catering to mid-career professionals in India and other developing economies and helping them secure remote jobs, freelance gigs, and internships with startups and SMEs across advanced economies such as the US, UK, and........

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