New Delhi: A Noida court on Tuesday rejected the bail plea of Sonia Dhawan, the former Paytm executive who was arrested for blackmailing and an extortion bid on her boss Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the CEO of the e-wallet giant. 

The Economic Times reported that the court said, "Keeping in mind the facts and circumstances and seeing that she, along with her husband and other co-accused, has committed a serious crime of a grave nature, grounds are not enough to grant her bail and the bail application is rejected.”

Dhawan was arrested on October 22 last year. She, however, said that there she is innocent as there is no independent witness against her.

Dhawan, who allegedly masterminded the extortion bid, is the secretary of Sharma and the trio had threatened to leak the data and misuse the information to cause the firm loss and dent its public image, officials said.

The owner of Paytm had made a complaint with the police that their employees had stolen some data from the company and were blackmailing. They were demanding Rs 20 crore for not leaking it, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ajay Pal Sharma said.

Taking immediate action on it, an FIR was registered and the culprits were arrested. 

The FIR was registered at Sector 20 police station and the accused were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 381 (theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master), 384 (extortion), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt), 420 (cheating), 408 (Criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant) and 120 B (party to a criminal conspiracy).

Charges under the provisions of the Information Technology Act have also been pressed against the accused, the police said.