File photo of BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover.
The ongoing battle between BharatPe and ousted co-founder Ashneer Grover took another ugly turn on Wednesday over non-payment of employees' salaries. The latest chain of events started after Senior IT Associate Karan Sarki, who has quit the job, requested BharatPe's management to pay his salary for the month of March.
Mr Sarki claimed that employment of all the old administrative staff “has been terminated by you without giving any reason” and that their salaries have not been paid.
“We were with BharatPe ever since the Compamy started and now we are nowhere because of your internal politics. We are poor people and have our houses to run, small kids to take care of. We have been spending our own money for company's petty cash and our reimbursement bills have not been paid since December,” Mr Sarki said in the post.
“All the staff of BharatPe is enjoying office paid trip to Goa and we engraved employees are fighting for their salaries and job. What kind of leaders you are,” he added.
The former employee tagged Grover, BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer, HR head Yudhisthis Singh and founder Shashvat Nakrani.
Grover, who was stripped of all titles and positions after a third-party audit alleged grave governance lapses under him, commented: “Folks please look into this. Not done - their salaries have to be paid first before anything.” He tagged Sameer and BharatPe's head of financial control Hersimran Kaur.
The post invited a lot of comments, including from Grover's sister Aashima, who called BharatPe management a “shameless bunch”. To this, Suhail Sameer responded that the company doesn't have enough money to pay salaries since her brother stole it all.
The CEO later apologised for the comment, saying it was “out of line”. “We are already working on past employees full and final being paid out,” he further said.
Mr Grover, who had to go on leave in January following allegations of using abusive language against Kotak Mahindra Bank staff and of fraudulent practices, had accused Sameer of siding with the investors to remove him from office.
He had also questioned the role of former SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar, an independent director on BharatPe board.