Boards need to be alert: NR Narayana Murthy, Infosys founder

Bengaluru: Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy said the boards of companies must ensure there is no governance deficit in their organisations and this should be on top of their minds while discharging their duties.

Murthy made these comments at a PwC event, without elaborating.

Infosys paid Rs 34.35 lakh to the Securities and Exchange Board of India last month to settle a case pertaining to the severance pay to former CFO Rajiv Bansal.


Murthy was the first to raise a red flag in February 2017 over the company’s failure to disclose the severance pay to the board.

The Infosys founder said Infosys “was an intellectual debating society” during his tenure and there would be arguments with cofounder Nandan Nilekani and former board member Mohandas Pai before taking decisions. “By and large, in an enlightened democracy, you avoid serious mistakes… because there is an opposition and that opposition holds the government accountable and therefore there is at least minimal damage,” said Murthy. “Similarly at Infosys, by and large, we avoided any serious mistake as long as we all were together.”