By Chandini Monnappa and Kashish Tandon
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Ola Electric founder Bhavish Aggarwal and a senior executive have been named in a police complaint after an employee accused them of harassment in a 28-page note before dying by suicide, according to a copy of the police report seen by Reuters.
The complaint, filed by the employee’s brother in Bengaluru, names Aggarwal and the company’s head of homologation, Subrath Kumar Das, alleging the employee was under intense pressure.
The deceased K. Aravind’s brother, Ashwin Kannan, told Reuters that a day after his brother’s cremation on September 29, the company deposited about 1.7 million rupees ($19,341) to Aravind’s account.
On enquiring about the payment, three people from Ola Electric’s human resources team visited him and said the deposit related to Aravind’s pending salary for the financial year 2024-25, he said.
“When they had not paid for months, how did they suddenly send the amount the very next day of hearing about my brother’s death and cremation?” Kannan asked.
Ola Electric, which has challenged the First Information Report (FIR) in the state’s top court, said the employee never raised any complaint or grievance regarding his employment or any harassment during his tenure.
However, Kannan told Reuters his brother had been employed with Ola Electric since 2022 and had recently complained that the company had not cleared his dues.
He said Aravind feared seeking payment after hearing that employees who raised similar concerns were losing their jobs.
On non-payment of salary, the company said all salary dues to Aravind “were cleared in the normal course of payroll processing”. “There were no pending or outstanding salary payments at the time of the incident,” it said.
“In order to provide immediate support to the family, the company promptly facilitated the full and final settlement to his bank account,” Ola Electric’s spokesperson said.
Ola Electric, backed by SoftBank Group, Temasek Holdings, Tiger Global Management and India’s State Bank of India has been grappling with slowing sales, regulatory scrutiny and intensifying competition from established two-wheeler makers.
The stock has fallen about 30% since listing in August 2024.
($1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon, Chandini Monnappa and Haripriya Suresh in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng)
