Nitin Seth files suit against Flipkart, says his ouster was illegal

He was appointed as the firm's chief operating officer (COO) in January

Nitin Seth, the former chief operating officer (COO) at India’s largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has served the company a legal notice over his ouster in May, claiming the way he was removed was illegal, according to a Times of India report.

Seth, who joined Flipkart as its chief people officer in March 2016, was one of the first senior executives to be hired under the leadership of Binny Bansal. He quickly moved up the ranks at the company, ending up as COO soon after Tiger Global’s Kalyan Krishnamurthy took over as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Flipkart in January.

According to the TOI report, Seth’s meteoric rise at Flipkart had raised eyebrows in the company. After joining as the head of the human resources (HR) department, he was seen as the second in command after Krishnamurthy himself, heading some of the most important business units such as eKart. Seth also weighed in on strategy.

The development is yet to be confirmed by Flipkart, while Seth could not be reached for comments.

Seth’s appointment to the position of COO came at a time when Krishnamurthy was reportedly involved in testing waters in the company by having loyal deputies in all key positions. The stepping down of a few veteran engineers at Flipkart too was seen as an act of allegiance to the founders or people who Krishnamurthy couldn’t trust.

A Livemint report had suggested that after being ousted from looking into the daily operations of Flipkart, founders Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal are once again making their presence felt. With Naspers and Tencent now controlling a significant chunk of Flipkart, the power of investor Tiger Global who had begun calling the shots has waned.

Mint had said that Binny Bansal has begun acting as a mentor for the eKart team that was earlier reporting to Seth. Meanwhile, Sachin Bansal is acting as a mentor to the technology teams that have lost a lot of senior engineering employees in the past year. The loss in terms of the firm’s talent pool was so drastic that many in the company fear that Flipkart could see a stagnation in innovation.