BENGALURU: The tussle between Ashneer Grover and fintech firm BharatPe continues as Grover reportedly wrote to the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) about data theft.
Grover accused BharatPe co-founder Bhavik Koladiya (who quit the company in July 2022) saying that he took data from the company to his new venture. BharatPe told this newspaper that this allegation is malicious and completely baseless. After quitting BharatPe, Koladiya took charge as the CEO of OTPLess, a SaaS start-up.
“BharatPe fiercely protects the data of its customers and observes high security standards. OTPless is our service provider that only enables verification via WhatsApp and is used by less than 10% of our merchant base. We are fully compliant on all our data privacy obligations with our customers and partners,” BharatPe said in a statement. Strongly denying the allegation, Bhavik Koladiya told this newspaper, “The allegations are nothing but an act of retaliation and frustration on his part, resulting from his removal from BharatPe and my ongoing legal suit against him in Delhi High Court.”
He added that there is no cause for concern as the claims made by Grover are completely without merit. Last month, Koladiya sued BharatPe’s former MD Grover in the Delhi High Court to reclaim his shares in the company. BharatPe was founded in 2017 by Koladiya and Shashvat Nakrani. Later, Grover joined BharatPe in 2018.
Recently, BharatPe filed a civil suit and a criminal complaint against Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain, and other family members for misappropriation of company funds. BharatPe has sought over Rs 88 crore in damages from them. The company also filed a criminal complaint with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on 17 counts, including cheating, siphoning, criminal breach of trust and embezzlement of funds, against Ashneer Grover and family.
In December last year, the company filed arbitration under the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) to clawback Grover’s restricted shareholding and the founder title. Grover holds about 8.5% stake in the fintech unicorn and of which, 1.4% was not vested and released on the date of his resignation.