As massive bribe-for-jobs scam surfaces, TCS sacks six employees, bans six staffing firms

India’s largest IT firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has sacked six employees for violating ethical conduct following whistleblower allegations around a bribe-for-jobs scandal, Tata Sons chairperson N Chandrasekaran said Thursday.

Addressing the TCS Annual General Meeting (AGM), he said the firm is investigating the role of three more of its employees, emphasising the importance of ethical conduct and integrity among employees.

TCS will tighten its supplier management process to ensure such incidents are not repeated, Chandrasekaran stressed. He said the firm received two separate whistleblower complaints in late February and March, following which it started thoroughly probing the allegations.

Complete Reviewing Of BA Supplier Management Process

While one complaint was about the appointment of business associates or contractual workers in the US, the other one concerned the Indian job market. The employees consequently sacked behaved in such a way that they were favouring certain companies, the chairperson added.

While Chandrasekaran said he cannot quantify the favours the involved employees got, he tried to assure shareholders such incidents won’t get repeated as TCS will review the whole Business Associate supplier management process to find the weaknesses.

Key Officials Eventually Sacked

It was reported earlier this month that certain senior executives at the IT company were receiving bribes from a few staffing firms in exchange for the recruitment of their candidates – a practice that had reportedly been going on for years now.

A recent whistleblower complaint to the company’s CEO and COO raised concerns over the global head of RMS (Resource Management Group), ES Chakravarthy, accepting favours from the involved staffing firms. TCS formed a three-member committee to investigate the claims.

After the probe, the company sacked four officials from RMG and sent its head of recruitment on leave. Another official in the division was also dismissed, while Chakravarthy was debarred from coming to office.