BharatPe vs Ashneer Grover: BharatPe co-founder and former managing director Ashneer Grover has sent a letter to the payments firm’s board and sought apology from its CEO Suhail Sameer for his comments on LinkedIn against him and his sister Aashima. Ashneer has also sought a resignation from BharatPe’s chairman Rajnish Kumar in his letter. Days ago, Suhail had on LinkedIn tagged Aashima in a comment and said that her brother had stole all of BharatPe‘s money.
In his letter, Ashneer Grover said that Suhail Sameer’s words on social media were not only defamatory, but “also blatantly a public lie and admission of the company being bankrupt by no less than its own CEO and member of the board”.
“As a Board which under the Chairmanship of Rajnish Kumar has claimed to be the epitome of corporate governance, I would want to ask what action is the Board going to take against Suhail Sameer ? Going by precedents and self proclaimed high standards of this Board, the CEO should be immediately served a show cause notice for his despicable public behaviour and immediately put on leave of absence to manage the damage on the Brand of the company,’ Ashneer wrote.
This comes after a spat on a LinkedIn post made by one of BharatPe’s employees who alleged that they had not received their March salary yet. Replying to this post, Aashima Grover had called the BharatPe board a “shameless bunch”. This elicited a comment from Suhail Sameer, who said, “Aashima behen – tere bhai ne saara paisa chura liya (Sister, your brother has stolen all the money). Very little left to pay salaries”.
Ashneer directed the letter to investors of BharatPe and took the opportunity to seek resignation of former SBI Chairman and veteran banker Rajnish Kumar, who is now the chairman of BharatPe board.
“Moreover the Chairman Rajnish Kumar should immediately resign. The current incident clearly brings out the fact that Rajnish Kumar condoning the life threat to me by Bhavik Koladiya from his own house and all the planned media leaks leading to my resignation in self respect, has further emboldened the current management to act as hooligans,” the ex-BharatPe MD wrote.
Ashneer added that he and his sister were well within their rights to take action against Suhail Sameer if he did not furnish a written apology to them. “”In absence of a written apology, I and my sister reserve our rights to seek damages and pursuing criminal defamation against Suhail Sameer and the BharatPe Board. My sister, whose reputation has been irreparably damaged by this comment, will also be in her right to take up this with the Women’s commission and appropriate authorities,” he wrote.
The BharatPe CEO had later commented on the post and apologised to Aashima for his comments. “My comment was a reaction to a particular statement, not the post. But I accept the mistake. I request you to also have patience, and refrain from building a story based on false narrative,” he said.
BharatPe had also denied claims of not paying its employees. “All the employees of the company have been paid their March salary in full. As per the company policy, employees serving their notice period will receive their full and final settlement amount in the due course as per company policy,” the company had said in a statement.
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