Delhi HC directs Ashneer Grover to take down ‘derogatory’ posts against BharatPe within 48 hours

The application was filed in the fintech company’s pending lawsuit seeking a “permanent injunction” restraining Grover and his family from making defamatory statements against the company, its directors, employees and for recovery of Rs 88.67 crore.

A single-judge bench of Justice Prathiba Singh said, “The Defendant No. 2 (Grover) being a businessman and having been the founder of the plaintiff company (Resilient) ought not to be making such tweets and derogatory remarks in this manner. Moreover the tweets relating to calling ‘SBI chairmen as petty people’ is a tweet which was completely avoidable as the same was nothing but an innuendo towards the plaintiff’s chairperson who is former SBI chairman”.

The high court also took note of an Economic Times news report published on March 7 and said that as per the report, Grover wrote a letter to the Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on March 6 “where he has alleged that BharatPe has deliberately defrauded the regulator”.

“Such tweets/publications are prima facie violative of the letter and spirit of the orders passed by this court as also the undertaking given by Defendant 2 (Grover). Defendant 2 or any other acting on his behalf shall stand restrained from making any such defamatory and derogatory statements against the plaintiff or its office bearers or officials in public platforms in this manner,” the high court directed.

Justice Singh, however, clarified that the remedies available to Grover and the other defendants are not covered by its order.

“The said tweets and publications will be immediately taken down within 48 hours by the Economic Times as also Defendant 1 (Grover) and 2 (Madhuri Jain Grover). Any publication based on the letter shall be taken down,” the court ordered, asking BharatPe to communicate the order to the platforms concerned.

Senior advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for BharatPe, submitted that despite earlier orders of the high court and Grover’s undertaking submitted before the court, he had continued to make statements against the plaintiff company and its officials. He argued that the March 6 letter written by Grover to the RBI had not been given to the plaintiff company, however Grover has from his personal account on X (earlier Twitter) reposted the news reports on the letter. Sibal also pointed to Grover’s tweet arguing that the former MD is “making deliberate allegations against the chairman of the plaintiff who is former SBI chairperson”.

Meanwhile, Grover’s counsel Giriraj Subramanium submitted that the news article in question has been published based on letters written by Grover to the RBI, “however such a report cannot be stopped” by his client. He submitted that the letter could have been sourced by the news platform from “any particular source” and his client “did not hand over the letter” to the news platform.