Surprised by the contents of Indian IT major HCL Technologies’ response to questions posed by the Home Affairs Committee, the Chairman, Mr Keith Vaz, today said the company will be probed further on the issue of deletion of e-mails of Rupert Murdoch-owned News International.

HCL’s response of August 1 insisted that it did not store News International’s e-mails and thus could not be responsible for their deletions, but went on to cite nine instances of e-mail deletions between April 2010 and July 2011.

Mr Vaz told PTI: “I am most surprised by the contents of the letter from HCL. The fact that so many emails have been deleted at the request of News International raises a number of further questions which we will continue to probe the company about.”

The deletion of News International emails is not directly linked to the phone-hacking investigation, but relates to the deletion of e-mails mentioned in the trial of Scottish leader Mr Tom Sheridan, who had successfully sued the now defunct News of the World tabloid.

The e-mails were alleged to have been lost in HCL’s facilities in India, but were later found in a warehouse in London.

An HCL spokeswoman said: “HCL continues to co-operate with the Metropolitan Police and the Home Affairs Select Committee in their investigations and has responded to all requests for information and clarification received to date.”

In the August 1 letter to the committee, HCL said it was responsible for News International’s ‘systems’, and company e-mails and data were held on its own server.

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