TCS banned six employees, probing the role of three more: N Chandrasekaran on job scam

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has banned six employees after finding them guilty of accepting favours from certain staffing firms in the appointment of contractual workers, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Thursday. The firm is probing the role of three more of its employees, Chandrasekaran said while speaking at the TCS Annual General Meeting (AGM). 

"We have banned six employees and also six companies," he said in response to questions from shareholders. He said the company received two separate whistleblower complaints -- one pertaining to the appointment of business associates or contractual workers in the US, and one in India, in late February and March, after which it investigated the allegations. 

Chandrasekaran said he cannot quantify the favours these employees got but the banned employees behaved in such a way that they were favouring certain firms. "The company will look at the whole BA (Business Associate) supplier management process and see what the weaknesses are and will completely tighten the process to ensure that we do not have such incidents," he said. 

Earlier this month, it was reported that a few senior executives at the firm were taking bribes from staffing firms in exchange for providing jobs to their candidates. This had been going on at the company for years now. The scam was discovered when a whistleblower wrote to the company's CEO and COO claiming that the global head of RMG, ES Chakravarthy, had been accepting bribes from the staffing firms involved in hiring candidates. 

Following this, TCS formed a three-member committee, which included Chief Information Security Officer Ajit Menon, to investigate the allegations. After the probe, TCS sent its head of recruitment on leave and sacked four officials from Resource Management Group (RMG). The company debarred Chakravarthy from coming to the office and sacked Arun GK, another official in the division. 

After sacking key officials, TCS appointed Sivakumar Viswanathan, a veteran of nearly 30 years, as the new head of the RMG. 

(With input from PTI)