OLA employee suicide: Karnataka High Court orders police not to harass CEO Bhavish Aggarwal during probe

The Karnataka High Court recently ordered the Bengaluru police not to harass the founder of electric vehicle manufacturer OLA Electric, Bhavish Aggarwal, and a senior official at the company, during an ongoing investigation into the suicide of a 38-year-old OLA engineer [Subrat Kumar Dash and ors v. State of Karnataka and anr].

The deceased employee, K Aravind, had reportedly accused senior officials at OLA of mental harassment and financial exploitation in a suicide note.

The company’s founder, Aggarwal, and the Head of Homologation Engineering at OLA Electric, Subrat Kumar Das, have now approached the High Court, seeking to quash the first information report (FIR) registered in the matter, which accuses them of driving the employee to die by suicide.

On October 17, a Bench of Justice Mohammed Nawaz ordered the police not to harass the Aggarwal or Das on the pretext of investigation.

“The police who are investigating into the case registered in Cr.No.372/2025 of Subramanyapura Police Station, Bengaluru City, shall not harass the petitioners in the guise of investigation,” the interim order stated.

The Court has also sought the response of the State and Ashwin Kannan, the deceased employee's brother, who filed the complaint in the matter.

The Bengaluru police had registered the FIR on October 6. It accuses Aggarwal, Das, and unnamed others associated with OLA Electric of committing the offence under Section 108 (abetment of suicide) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS).

The deceased engineer, K Aravind, was employed at OLA Electric since 2022 as a homologation engineer in Bengaluru. His brother filed a complaint alleging that Aravind was subjected to mental harassment at OLA and that his salary and allowances were denied by the company, which led him to take his own life.

According to the complaint, Aravind succumbed to his injuries after he consumed poison on September 28 at his residence in Chikkalasandra, Bengaluru.

Aravind's family claims that a sum of ₹17,46,313 was transferred to his bank account two days after his death, which was flagged as being suspicious. They also said that a suicide note recovered from Aravind's house named Subrat Kumar Das and Bhavish Aggarwal as responsible for his death.