Infosys gives clean chit to CEO Salil Parekh

IT major Infosys has given a clean chit to its CEO Salil Parekh after the independent probe by a law firm found no discrepancies in the company’s financial statements.

"Audit Committee of the Board of Directors has concluded the independent investigation ("investigation”) into allegations contained in the anonymous whistleblower complaints the company disclosed on October 21, 2019 ("whistleblower complaints") and determined that the allegations are substantial without merit," the company said.

The company said that 128 interviews were conducted with 77 persons including relevant company personnel concerned with or mentioned in the allegations.

The process also included identifying 46 custodians for a collection of relevant documents and electronic data along with reviewing over 2.1 lakh documents from electronic sources and imaged devices, with over 8 terabytes of electronic data being processed.

The probe by the regulators in the US and India – Securities Exchange Commission and Securities Exchange Board of India – is still on.

A group of Infosys whistleblowers, in a letter dated September, had alleged that CEO Parekh had been fudging the company’s financials and inflating profits in the recent quarters, along with allegations of passing racist and misogynistic comment about various members of the board.

In the letter to the board of the Infosys, the employees of Infosys had alleged that they were told not to reports costs in recent quarters in a bid to inflate profits. "We have high respect for all of you and bring to your notice unethical practices of CEO in the recent quarters… In the last quarter, we were asked not to fully recognise the costs like visa costs," the letter, which was first published by DH, said.

After the letter got leaked to media, Infosys had hired law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co, to conduct "independent investigation" on whistleblower charges against the company’s CEO Salil Parekh.

Corporate governance standards of the company had again come into question as the IT major, despite knowing about the whistleblowers' complaints two weeks ago and discussing it during the October 11 board meeting, chose not to disclose it to investors.