BharatPe is in no mood to settle. In a recent court hearing, when the Delhi High Court remarked that BharatPe and Ashneer Grover should explore settlement, the fintech major’s lawyer replied that it is on the cards but not yet.
BharatPe has taken three legal actions against Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, and other family members. These include a civil suit in the Delhi High Court, a criminal complaint with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), and an arbitration to take away Ashneer Grover’s restricted shareholding and his co-founder title.
BharatPe has accused the Grovers of creating false bills, enlisting fictitious vendors, and overcharging the company for recruitment. The fintech unicorn has sought over Rs 88 crore in damages from Grover, his wife, and his brother.
The company had sought disclosure of assets owned by Grover and his family members, an interim injunction against defendants restraining them from making defamatory/derogatory statements concerning BharatPe, its directors, employees, and/or publicising the same, direction to Grovers for deleting/removing statements, social media posts, tweets, books, hashtags, videos and other media against the company and orders granting liberty to BharatPe to approach social media platforms, media organisations, publications, websites, blogs, etc. to seek deletion/removal of such material.
BharatPe aside, Grover has launched a new start-up called Third Unicorn. The new venture will be focusing on fantasy sports with a cricket-centric app called CrickPe.
The CrickPe website stated that the platform is a fantasy sports app that will allow players to participate in public, private, or "mega contests" to earn cash prizes.
The participants can create small private groups to play the game or can participate in bigger contests with real cricketers. The platform will also offer free contests for people to practice and hone their skills.
Besides this, CrickPe is also slated to offer a feature that allows users to pay rewards to show love to their favourite cricketer.
Mails sent to Grover and to BharatPe did not elicit any response at the time of publishing. Story will be updated as and when they respond.