Following the IT giant’s inquiry into the bribes-for-jobs controversy, Tata Consultancy Services announced in an exchange filing on October 15 that sixteen workers had been fired and six companies had been prohibited from doing business. The corporation investigated into allegations that staffing companies had engaged in bribing top officials in charge of the company’s recruiting processes in order to win business. Months later, the inquiry was closed.
“Our investigation found 19 employees to be involved and action has been taken against all as detailed here – 16 employees have been separated from the Company for code of conduct violations, and 3 employees have been removed from the Resource Management function,” TCS mentioned in an exchange filing.
The company added that it would keep enhancing its analytics for supplier management, that periodic vendor declarations regarding compliance with the Tata Code of Conduct and know-your-supplier procedures, which would include new declarations, and audits of the vendor management process would all help to enhance its governance measures.
“We have completed our investigation. We have taken appropriate action against whosoever we believe violated our code of conduct. Actions differ based on the kind of violation but all actions have been taken and it’s closed,” the CEO added.
N Chandrasekaran, the CEO of Tata Sons, had previously said to shareholders at the annual general meeting that he was unable to quantify the advantages received by the workers in issue, but that they “certainly behaved in a way that they were favouring certain firms.”
The case first came to light on June 23, 2023, when TCS claimed in stock exchange filings that the RMG (Resource Management Group) didn’t handle any recruitment activities for TCS and that it was only responsible for allocating available resources to various projects and, in case of any shortfall, filling such requirements through contractors. This claim was made in response to a whistleblower complaint.
“At any point in time in the overall deployment of resources, about 2-3 percent of them are such BAs or contractors. The complaint was related to certain individuals in the company working with certain BA firms to be recruiting in their favour,” Chandrasekaran elucidated.
He further added, “There are a large number of BA firms that TCS works with. There is a rigorous process in the company to recruit or qualify a firm to be called a BA firm. There are about a little over 1,000 such firms globally because we need resources in 55 such countries. And each one of them does a certain amount of business depending on their skill availability.”
