Ola Electric

Ola Electric's payments to Krutrim AI, a separate company owned by its own founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, rose roughly fourfold to about Rs 100 crore in FY26 even as the company's overall expenses fell by nearly half, including about Rs 46 crore in advance payments for services not yet invoiced. Corporate governance experts flagged the transaction for scrutiny given board overlap between the two entities and questioned whether the arrangement met the arm's-length and independent-approval requirements of SEBI's related-party transaction rules. Ola Electric said the payments reflected a full migration of its cloud and AI infrastructure to Krutrim and that the transactions were arm's-length and fully compliant.

Ola Electric reversed a Rs 57 crore (~$6.8M) provision it had booked for potential penalties under India's battery-cell Production-Linked Incentive scheme in its June-quarter (Q1 FY27) results, before receiving formal approval from the Ministry of Heavy Industries for the extension and waiver it had requested. Statutory auditor BSR & Co. LLP (a KPMG India affiliate) issued a qualified audit opinion - the company's first since its 2024 listing - stating it could not obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence in the absence of MHI approval. Ola Electric shares fell 5-6% on the news despite a narrower quarterly loss.

In its FY26 annual report (disclosed around June 2026, filed to the central government via e-form ADT-4 on June 4, 2026), auditor BSR & Co. LLP flagged a second suspected employee fraud at Ola Electric Technologies Pvt Ltd (OET), the company's wholly owned operating subsidiary, involving an amount exceeding ₹1 crore (~$120,000). A first suspected fraud at the same subsidiary had been disclosed in the FY25 annual report (filed July 2025). The company did not disclose the employees' names or the precise nature of either fraud. The disclosure came alongside separate auditor findings of inventory-verification gaps (₹153 crore unverified in FY26) and a qualified audit opinion.

India's securities regulator SEBI issued a show-cause notice (dated April 10, 2026) alleging Ola Electric and founder/chairman Bhavish Aggarwal made false and misleading disclosures to the market, including claiming 'more than 25,000 electric vehicles sold' in February 2025 when the figure represented unconfirmed bookings rather than completed registrations/deliveries, and overstating store/service-centre expansion (claiming over 3,200 co-located stores expanding to 4,000) in a December 2024 announcement that coincided with an 8.45% share-price jump. SEBI also cited inadequate disclosure of Roadster and Roadster X motorcycle prototype approval delays and a January 2025 case where Aggarwal announced material store-expansion information on social media before informing stock exchanges. SEBI alleged violations of the Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices (PFUTP) and Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) regulations, covering an investigation period of August 2024 to May 2025. Ola Electric filed an application to settle the SEBI probe on June 8, 2026; the settlement remained pending as of October 2026. Separately, auditors flagged the first-ever qualified opinion and absence of mandatory internal audit systems at Ola Electric and two subsidiaries for FY26.

Ola Electric engineer K. Aravind died by suicide on September 28, 2025, leaving a 28-page note that alleged sustained workplace harassment, non-payment of salary and allowances, and excessive work pressure, naming CEO Bhavish Aggarwal and executive Subrat Kumar Das. Bengaluru police registered an FIR on October 6, 2025 against Aggarwal, Das, and other unnamed officials under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions for abetment of suicide. A payment of roughly Rs 17.46 lakh transferred to Aravind's account two days after his death drew scrutiny as a possible attempted cover-up. It was the second suicide tied to workplace pressure at the Ola group in 2025, following the May 2025 death of a Krutrim machine-learning engineer. Ola Electric disputed the allegations, stated Aravind never raised a grievance and had no direct interaction with the promoter, and obtained Karnataka High Court protective orders against police action while the investigation continues.

India's Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued a show cause notice to Ola Electric in October 2024 following over 80,000 consumer complaints on the National Consumer Helpline. Issues included battery fires, range and charging problems, software glitches, and poor service center experience. The CCPA investigation found potential violations of consumer rights and unfair trade practices.