The stock of eyewear brand Lenskart on Monday declined almost 5 percent on the bourses amid backlash over an alleged discriminatory dress code for its store employees.
The stock opened 0.9 percent lower at Rs 530 compared to the previous close of Rs 534.85 on Friday.
While the stock rose during the early hours of trade to Rs 532.95, it later declined to as low as Rs 508.70. This was about a 4.9 percent decline in the stock value compared to the previous close.
The stock, however, was able to recover most of the day’s losses towards the end of trade, with a decline of just 0.2 percent.
Monday’s decline in the stock was in contrast to returns of over 6 percent during the last week and almost 20 percent during the last 30 days.
Lenskart was listed on the Indian stock exchanges in November last year.
Currently, the company is at the centre of a controversy for allegedly imposing a discriminatory dress code at its stores.
Since last week, screenshots of Lenskart’s alleged anti-Hindu dress code for store employees have been going viral on social media.
While the dress code banned visible Hindu symbols such as bindi, tilak, and kalawa, it permitted hijabs and turbans.
The dress code document was from February. The company’s founder Peyush Bansal, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), said that the company promotes no restrictions on the expression of faith.
“This document does not reflect our present guidelines. Our policy has no restrictions on any form of religious expression, including bindi and tilak, and we continue to review our guidelines regularly,” Bansal said.
He said that the document circulating on the internet was an outdated internal training document.
In subsequent posts, he shared the current dress code policy, with both bindi and hijab allowed to be worn by staff.
