Ashneer Grover takes ‘voluntary’ leave from BharatPe amidst a legal battle with Kotak Mahindra Bank

• The development comes a few days after an audio clip of Grovers hurling abuses and threats at a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee made rounds on the internet.
• Kotak Mahindra Bank, responding to the legal notice sent to them by Grover, confirmed the existence of such a conversation.
• Last year, Grover stepped out of his role as the chief executive officer (CEO) of BharatPe and was replaced by Suhail Sameer.

BharatPe’s cofounder and managing director Ashneer Grover has decided to take a voluntary leave of absence from BharatPe till March end.

The development comes a few days after an audio clip of Grovers hurling abuses and threats at a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee was making rounds on social media. The point of contention between the two was Kotak Mahindra Bank’s inability to provide financing worth ₹500 crore for Grover and family to subscribe to shares in the Nykaa IPO.

Grover had taken to social media to claim that the audio clip was fake, and that he was being blackmailed to pay $240,000 in Bitcoins to the extorter. However, Grover later deleted that tweet.

It was later confirmed that Ashneer Gover and his wife Madhuri Grover had sued the bank in October 2021 over the same issue. The legal notice named Kotak Mahindra Bank’s managing director and chief executive (CEO) Uday Kotak, as well as Kotak Wealth Management’s CEO Oisharya Das and several other top executives in the company.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, responding to the legal notice, confirmed the existence of such a conversation.

“This notice was received by us and was replied to appropriately at the time, including placing on record our objections to inappropriate language used by Mr. Grover,” the statement read.

Earlier this week, an Economic Times report also highlighted that Grover has previously had rifts with Sequoia India’s director Harshjit Sethi too for backing out of a financing round in 2019. Sequoia is one of the oldest backers of the three-year-old fintech startup BharatPe.

Last year, Grover stepped out of his role as the chief executive officer (CEO) of BharatPe. Group President Suhail Sameer had replaced him in this role.

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