Rs 17 crore employee: This man cost Infosys a bomb

There is an iconic twist to the long-drawn tussle at Infosys last year, which saw bitter fights between the board and co-founders led by NR Narayana Murthy and culminated in the exit of CEO Vishal Sikka and chairman R Seshasayee.

Former CFO Rajiv Bansal, whose severance package was partially blocked by the company after allegations by Murthy, is now all set to get the remaining Rs 12.17 crore with interest. Bansal had dragged the company to arbitration in April last year after it halted his payouts. The company had filed a counter claim against Bansal asking for the refund of the previously paid severance of Rs 5.2 crore and other damages. Now the arbitration tribunal has ruled in Bansal's favour.

Bansal’s severance pay has been at the heart of the governance battle being waged at Infosys. When Bansal left in 2015, Infosys had agreed to pay him Rs 17.38 crore as severance, about two years of pay. But the company paid out only about Rs 5 crore before suspending the payments


The suspension came as promoters led by Murthy questioned the payout. Murthy had gone so far as to the say the severance had the appearance of "hush money". He had alleged that the company wanted to suppress some information with the hefty severance payout.

In an interview in February last year, Murthy told ET, "We have had a couple of eminent CFOs (e.g. Mohandas Pai and V Balakrishnan) who left the company and several key (former) employees (BG Srinivas and Ashok Vemuri) who had as important “secrets” as (Rajiv) Bansal, the former CFO (as claimed by the chairman (R Seshasayee) at the 2016 AGM) and they did not get any severance pay at all. Simply saying that the board did what was in the best interest of the company reinforces doubts that company was suppressing some information harmful to the company. If there was no harm done to the company, then it raises doubts about fiduciary responsibility."

“While the award acknowledges that that Infosys had bona fide disputes, its counter claim for refund of previously paid severance amount of Rs 5.2 crore and damages, has been rejected. Infosys will take legal advice for necessary actions to be undertaken in respect of the award,” the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Infosys is hunting for its fourth CFO in five years after CFO MD Ranganath quit last month. At the end of the June quarter, attrition at the company soared to an alarming 20.6 per cent, from 16.6 per cent in the March quarter. Earlier in June, Sangita Singh, Executive Vice-President and head of the IT major's $750 million healthcare and life sciences business, and Nitesh Banga, Senior VP and Global Head of manufacturing and Edge products put in their papers. In January, Infosys President Rajesh Krishnamurthy resigned.