BharatPe Saga: Rajnish Kumar complicit in fraud transactions, says Ashneer Grover accusing Board Chair of misconduct

The ongoing tussle at BharatPe has taken a new turn as the former Managing Director, Ashneer Grover, has levelled serious allegations against the company’s board Chairman, Rajnish Kumar. In a letter addressed to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Grover has accused Kumar of allocating equity shares worth hundreds of crores to himself since joining the BharatPe board, according to a report by Economic Times.

Grover further alleged that Kumar hiked his salary threefold to ₹1.5 crore per year for his services, compared to his initial fees upon joining the board in October 2021. He has called for an investigation by the central bank into Kumar’s involvement in the ongoing dispute over company shares between Grover and his co-founder, Bhavik Koladiya, the report added.

Responding to the allegations, a BharatPe spokesperson dismissed them as “baseless and without merit”, labelling them as “another desperate attempt to malign the company.” The spokesperson stated that the company continues to pursue civil and criminal actions against Grover and has full faith in the country’s judicial system, as quoted by ET report.

In his latest communication to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) dated March 9, Ashneer Grover has levelled serious accusations against the fintech company’s board, investors, and management. Grover alleged that they had engaged in fraudulent activities and provided misleading information to the regulator regarding the ultimate beneficial ownership of BharatPe’s shares, the report added.

As per the report, to lend credibility to his claims, Grover highlighted that he had received a clean chit from Deloitte, the statutory auditor of Resilient Innovations, the parent entity of BharatPe. 

Grover, who parted ways with the company in March 2022, has sought an investigation to uncover whether BharatPe’s board and investors had temporarily held or “warehoused” the shares belonging to Bhavik Koladiya, Grover’s co-founder, for a specific period. He alleged that they brought Koladiya back into the fold only after obtaining the necessary approvals from the central bank.

Grover has also raised questions about whether the regulator would have granted BharatPe a 49 per cent stake in Unity Small Finance Bank or allowed it to acquire a controlling interest in the non-banking finance company, Liquiloans, if Koladiya was listed as a part of the company’s cap table during the license application process. It is worth noting that BharatPe has also received in-principle approval from the RBI for its payment aggregator business through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Resilient Payments.