Zoho founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu is currently involved in one of the most expensive divorce cases in the world. A court in California has ordered him to deposit a bond worth $1.7 billion, which is around ₹15,000 crore, as part of the ongoing divorce proceedings with his wife, Pramila Srinivasan.

This case is being described as the costliest divorce involving an Indian businessman and is among the top four most expensive divorces globally. Sridhar Vembu’s net worth is estimated at about $5.85 billion, placing him among India’s richest individuals. However, most of Zoho’s shares are reportedly owned by his siblings. Zoho is a privately held software company with around 12,000 employees and about 80 million users worldwide.

Sridhar Vembu married Pramila Srinivasan in 1993, and the couple has a son. After living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States for nearly 25 years, Vembu moved back to India in 2020. He shifted to Tamil Nadu, where he began focusing on rural development initiatives while continuing to run Zoho from India.

Pramila Srinivasan filed for divorce in 2020. In her court filings, she accused Vembu of abandoning her and their son, who has special needs. She also alleged that Vembu secretly transferred important Zoho assets, including intellectual property and company shares, to family members in India. According to her, these actions were meant to reduce her share under California’s community property laws, which typically divide marital assets equally.

In a court statement filed in 2023, Srinivasan said that her husband transferred valuable assets without paying any money for them and without informing or seeking her permission. She claimed these transfers were made quietly and unfairly.

Vembu has strongly denied these allegations. He stated that he never reduced their shared financial interests and that his move to India was only to pursue social and rural development projects. He also said that he had asked his wife and son to move to India with him, but the Covid-19 pandemic made this difficult.

Court documents show that Vembu personally owns only about 5 per cent of Zoho, while most shares are held by his brother and sister. Srinivasan’s lawyers have raised questions about several asset transfers, including a reported $50 million sale of Zoho’s intellectual property to an India-based company. Vembu has said that the money from this transaction remains with the original US-based holding company.

Globally, some of the most expensive divorces include those of Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott, and Alec and Jocelyn Wildenstein, each involving billions of dollars.