Social media has brought us down to this level; ask Ashneer Grover to maintain decorum: Delhi High Court in BharatPe suit

The Delhi High Court on Monday asked counsel for former BharatPe Managing Director Ashneer Grover to advise his client to maintain decorum in the aftermath of his ouster from the fintech company..While issuing notice on an application filed by Grover and his wife Madhuri seeking access to their official email ids, Justice Navin Chawla remarked,"This social media has brought us down to this level. Ask him (Grover) to maintain decorum."The court's remark came as it was shown certain Tweets and statements made by Grover against BharatPe and its officers. The court was told that the language used in some of those statements are such that they cannot be repeated in open court. .The Court was hearing a suit filed by BharatPe seeking, among other reliefs, orders to restrain them from making defamatory statements against the fintech company..Appearing for BharatPe, Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar told the Court,"Even after filing of the suit, he (Grover) is saying things which I can't even repeat in court."Advocate Giriraj S, representing Grover shot back,"I am the largest individual shareholder in the company. The AGM was being held and I was stopped. I am saying I will call the police. Don't know what is wrong in that."Nayar pointed out to the Court that Grover had recently released a book in which he had equated the legal profession to prostitution."Just because there is no interim order doesn't mean he can keep on saying anything," he said..At this point, the Court asked counsel for Grover,"Why are you saying all these things about these professions? Do these have any relevance? The moment you start saying something against these officers of the company, you are defaming the company."Giriraj then informed the Court that after BharatPe filed this suit, they also filed complaints with the police and started arbitration as well..After hearing the parties, the Court ordered,"Issue notice on defendants' application to the plaintiff. Notice accepted. Three more weeks time granted to the defendants to file their responses to the interim applicants. Written statements to be filed in response to the main suit as well."Rajiv Nayar was briefed by a team from Trilegal comprising Anuj Berry, Sourabh Rath, Bhargavi Vadeyar and Vibhore Yadav..BharatPe moved the High Court months after Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain were ousted from the company over allegations of misappropriation of funds.In the last hearing on December 8, the High Court had issued summons to Grover and his wife and others and gave them two weeks' time to file replies to the interim relief application filed by the company.Appearing for BharatPe, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi had shown the Court some of the tweets by Grover and argued that he is making allegations against the company and its current management. However, as the counsel appearing for Grover stated that they have not been served with the suit copy, the Court did not pass any interim orders then and issued notice to Grover and others..In its suit, BharatPe has claimed damages of over ₹88.67 crore from Grover, his wife and his brother under various heads. This includes a claim for payment made against the invoices of non-existent vendors, amounting to ₹71.7 crore; a claim for penalty paid to GST authorities amounting to ₹1.66 crore; payments made to vendors purportedly providing recruitment services totalling ₹7.6 crore; payments of ₹1.85 crore made to a furnishings company; payments for personal expenditures of Ashneer and Madhuri Jain Grover amounting to ₹59.7 lakh and ₹5 crore damages for loss of reputation to the company caused by tweets and other statements made by Grover and his family members.As interim relief, BharatPe has sought:Disclosure of assets of Grover and his family members;Interim injunction against the defendants restraining them from making defamatory/derogatory statements concerning BharatPe, its directors, employees and/or publicizing the same;Direction to defendants to delete/remove within a period of five days all statements, tweets, social media posts, books, re-tweets, hashtags, videos, press conferences, interviews, comments etc made against the company;Orders granting liberty to BharatPe to approach all social media platforms, media organisations, publications, websites, blogs etc. to seek deletion/removal of all such material.