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IT bellwether Infosys on Friday said it has reached an amicable settlement with a former employee who had filed a case against it in a US court alleging that he was harassed after he blew the whistle on a visa wrongdoing.
On August 2, 2012, Satya Dev Tripuraneni, an Indian American who worked for five years as an accounts manager at Infosys’ Silicon Valley office in California, filed a lawsuit alleging that the Infosys management retaliated against him after he blew the whistle on visa-related fraud.
In its judgment, the Northern District of California court said the case be ‘dismissed with prejudice’, which means that Tripuraneni cannot refile the case. An Infosys spokesperson, in a statement said: “The Dev Tripuraneni lawsuit filed against the company has been withdrawn following successful mediation of the dispute. We can confirm that we reached an amicable settlement, without any admission of liability.” It, however, did not disclose the terms of settlement and did not admit to any wrongdoing.
Tax issues
In his lawsuit, the former employee had accused Infosys of using B-1 business visitor visas for performing outsourcing work in the US, saying this resulted in the company evading taxes payable to the local government.
Initially, Tripuraneni used the Infosys whistle-blower mechanism to report the case, as a result of which, he alleged, he was threatened and demoted. Hence, he filed a lawsuit in the Californian court. Previously, Jack Palmer, another Infosys employee, had filed a similar case. But in August this year, an Alabama court threw out his case stating that it found no basis to support any of his charges under the state’s law. However, after the Palmer accusation, Infosys has come under the lens of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has questioned the eligibility of its employees working in the US.
Eligibility probe
The DHS has questioned the legality of the company’s employees working in the US after it found a ‘significant percentage’ of errors in the I-9 form filed by its employees.
The I-9 is an employment eligibility verification form that has to be filled by every employee at the time of joining and needs to be submitted to the US Federal government to be eligible to work in the US.
The probe is ongoing and Infosys has denied any wrongdoing.
> venkatesh.ganesh@thehindu.co.in
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