Ashneer Grover, BharatPe’s former Managing Director and co-founder, has denied allegations of him selling thousands of ICC Mens’ T20 World Cup 2021 passes for crores of rupees.

Taking to Twitter on Thursday, Grover said, “What BharatPe Board thinks I am doing at ICC World Cup, 10 ka 2, 10 ka 2, 10 ka 2 - aye sahab mangta hai kya ticket black mein?! (sir, do you want to buy tickets in black)” What I am actually doing is ensuring Suhail Sameer (BharatPe CEO) and @sumeetsingh29 (Sumeet Singh, General Counsel of BharatPe) don’t drink the hospitality section dry. Kuchh nahi mila to kuchh bhi !!!” 

Grover was responding to an IANS report which had alleged that he sold thousands of free passes during the T20 world cup last year and made crores of rupees from this sale. BharatPe was the global partner of the tournament. Each pass was said to have been sold for about ₹15,000.

‘Complaint against Sumeet Singh’

Meanwhile, a source close to the company told BusinessLine that the Bar Council had received a complaint against BharatPe General Counsel Sumeet Singh for not surrendering his registration when he took up full time employment. A lawyer is supposed to surrender the registration with the Bar when he/she takes up full time employment. 

However, BusinessLine could not find Sumeet Singh’s name or enrollment number in the December 2021 list of lawyers registered with the Bar.

The source had also alleged that BharatPe board was alerted about this complaint during governance review but they chose to ignore it. BusinessLine could not verify this claim independently and BharatPe did not respond to our queries on this matter.

Role of Suhail Sameer

Earlier this week, Ashneer Grover told BusinessLine that CEO Suhail Sameer has not gone to office even for a week in the last quarter and the “employees are lost”.

He also questioned Sameer’s contribution to the company’s recently launched gold loan for merchants product.

“Suhail has made no contribution and is selling lies, as he hasn’t been able to launch even things which I had planned in the last three months,” said Grover.

Earlier this month, BharatPe alleged that Grover and his family has misappropriated company’s funds.

“Grover family and their relatives engaged in extensive misappropriation of company funds, including but not limited to, creating fake vendors through which they syphoned money away from the company’s expense account and grossly abused company’s expense accounts in order to enrich themselves and fund their lavish lifestyles,” said the company in a statement on March 2.

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