Ashneer Grover, the co-founder of fintech firm BharatPe, on Tuesday tendered an apology before the Delhi High Court for his social media posts against the company. The Delhi High Court also directed Grover to pay a fine of Rs 2 lakh for his constant posts against the company.
While announcing the fine, Delhi High Court Justice Rekha Palli pulled up Grover for violating the court's orders. "I am appalled to see the persistent violation of the court's order," Justice Palli was quoted as saying by Bar & Bench.
In May this year, the Delhi High Court ordered Ashneer Grover and BharatPe to refrain from using unparliamentary language against each other. Advocate Giriaj Subramanium, who appeared for Grover, also said that his client is giving an undertaking that he will abide by the court's orders and not post anything unparliamentary against BharatPe.
The High Court's verdict on Tuesday comes after BharatPe's parent company Resilient Innovations filed a fresh case against him in the Delhi HC. Resilient Innovations sought an injunction against Grover to prevent disclosure of 'confidential information' related to the company.
The case against Grover, who is in a legal battle with BharatPe, came after he shared details about the equity allocation and secondary components involved in BharatPe's recent funding round. The funding round was led by Tiger Global and raised $370 million and valued the company at $2.86 billion.
BharatPe argued that even though Grover has deleted the post, he violated the obligations in his employment agreement as he disclosed confidential information about the company.
The recent action by the Delhi High Court is in addition to the ongoing civil suit against Grover and his family members. In this civil suit, BharatPe alleged embezzlement of funds and has sought up to Rs 88.67 crore in damages.
The company accused Grover and his family of causing damages to the tune of Rs 81.3 crore through illegal payments to HR consultants, made illegal payments to travel invoices and adding non-existing transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities.
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