New Delhi: The Bharatpe salary row has sparked a new controversy as former chief Asheer Grover has written to the company’s board eeking action against CEO Suhail Sameer following his offensive remark on a LinkedIn comment, and sought chairman Rajnish Kumar’s resignation, reported news agency PTI.


The salary row began with a social media post by a former Bhartpe employee Karan Sarki who claimed that the company sacked the old staff and that they were not paid their salaries.


In the comment box of the post, Grover’s sister Aashima commented regarding the salaries. In response to this comment, Sameer said, “Behen- tere bhai ne saara paisa chura liya (Sister, your brother has stolen all the money). Very little left to pay salaries.”


Though Sameer apologised for his comment late Thursday evening, Grover has pushed the letter against him. According to PTI, in the letter dated April 8, Grover said that the comments made by Sameer are not only defamatory but also “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 high standards of this board, the CEO should be immediately served a show-cause notice for his despicable public behaviour and immediately put on a leave of absence to manage the damage to the brand of the company,” the letter demanded.


"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 said.


Grover also tweeted on Thursday that Bharatpe “closed its first quarter of 'degrowth' and 'maximum cash burn' under able (sic) leadership of Rajnish Kumar and Suhail Sameer.”


However, the claim was denied by a spokesperson of the company saying that the company registered the strongest quarter in its history.


"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 said.


“Bharatpe's merchant total payments value (TPV) grew 17 percent,  consumer TPV 39 percent, loans facilitated 31 percent, and revenue 21 percent in March 2022 over Feb 2022,” the spokesperson added.


"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 further said.


Grover also demanded in the letter that Sameer's all dealings should be audited by an independent auditor and he should only be reinstated as CEO once 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 the behest of investors, not a governance review," Grover said.


In March, Grover was removed from all the positions in Bharatpe over the alleged involvement of Grover's family and relatives in the extensive misappropriation of the company's funds.


In the letter, Grover warned that in case Sameer does not apologise, he and his sister may file a suit of criminal defamation against the Bharatpe CEO and the company.


"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 said.


He said the management feels that they have got a 'carte blanche' from the board and its chairman to target him and his family without fear 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 said.