Former BharatPe chief Ashneer Grover has written to the corporate’s board looking for motion in opposition to CEO Suhail Sameer following his offensive remarks on social media and sought resignation of chairman Rajnish Kumar.
In response to a remark by Ashneer’s sister Aashima on a social media publish by former BharatPe worker Karan Sarki, Sameer mentioned “Behen- tere bhai ne saara paisa chura liya (Sister, your brother has stolen all the money). Very little left to pay salaries”.
Sarki within the publish had raised the difficulty of sacking of previous workers and non-payment of salaries.
Grover within the letter dated April 8, a replica of which is reviewed by PTI, mentioned Sameer’s language in response to the aforesaid social media publish just isn’t solely defamatory however “also blatantly a public lie and admission of the company being bankrupt by no less than its own CEO and member of the board”.
“Going by precedents and self-proclaimed excessive requirements of this board, the CEO must be instantly served a present trigger discover for his despicable public behaviour and instantly placed on go away of absence to handle the harm on the model of the corporate.
“Suhail has to conclusively prove to the board that he was not under the influence of alcohol and drugs when he put the said reply on LinkedIn,” Grover mentioned.
On Thursday, he tweeted that BharatPe “closed its first quarter of ‘degrowth’ and ‘maximum cash burn’ under able (sic) leadership of Rajnish Kumar and Suhail Sameer.” However, a BharatPe spokesperson mentioned the corporate registered the strongest quarter in its historical past.
“We have registered 4x growth in our overall revenue over the same period last year. On a sequential-quarter basis, the growth has been 30 per cent, despite the third wave of Covid-19. Comparing month-on-month, all our metrics have grown at the fastest pace,” the spokesperson mentioned.
BharatPe’s service provider whole funds worth (TPV) grew 17 per cent, client TPV 39 per cent, loans facilitated 31 per cent, and income 21 per cent in March 2022 over Feb 2022, the spokesperson mentioned.
“Going forward, we are tracking well to break even on our merchant business and further strengthen our consumer business. We request the media to take official comments from the company and not from former employees who no longer have business information,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Grover within the letter mentioned that Sameer’s all dealings must be audited by an impartial auditor and he ought to solely be reinstated as CEO as soon as the audit report is tabled with the board and it exonerates him of any wrongdoing.
“Anything lesser in terms of action here would undeniably prove what is a fact – that what was done to me was a well planned discriminatory conspiracy by the board at behest of investors, not a governance review,” Grover mentioned.
BharatPe had eliminated Grover from all positions in March on the firm and alleged to have additionally discovered involvement of Grover’s household and family in in depth misappropriation of the corporate’s funds.
Grover has demanded a written apology from Sameer and in absence of the identical, he and his sister might search damages and pursue prison defamation in opposition to the BharatPe CEO and the corporate.
Sameer had apologised for his remarks after it earned criticism from a number of folks in social media.
“Moreover, 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, have further emboldened the current management to act as hooligans,” Grover mentioned.
He mentioned the administration feels that they’ve a ‘carte blanche’ from the board and its chairman to focus on him and his household with out concern of any repercussions.
“It also proves that in the Governance Review which was supposed to be all encompassing, the chairman refused to look into the allegations made against Suhail altogether, further leading him to believe he is above everything,” Grover mentioned.