Whistleblower Helps Uncover The Rs 100 Crore 'Bribe For Job' Scam At Tata Consultancy Services

India's largest IT firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has been rocked by a Rs 100 crore scandal after the company discovered that some of its senior executives, who had been trusted to hire thousands of critical employees, accepted bribes from staffing firms.

'Bribe For Job' Scam At TCS

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While the exact details of the scam are still sketchy, two executives aware of the developments said that a whistleblower, in a communication to TCS¡¯s CEO and COO, alleged that E.S. Chakravarthy, the global head of TCS¡¯s resource management group (RMG), the company¡¯s recruitment division, had been accepting commissions from staffing firms for years, as per the Mint report.

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Actions Taken By TCS After Scam Unfolded

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Following the complaint, TCS promptly set up a team of three executives, including the firm¡¯s chief information security officer, Ajit Menon, to probe the allegations.

After weeks of investigation, TCS sent the head of recruitment on leave, sacked four executives from RMG, and blacklisted three staffing firms. Although the company is yet to ascertain the scale of the irregularities, one of the two executives cited above said people involved in the scam may have earned at least ?100 crore through commissions.

Chakravarthy, who holds the rank of vice president, joined TCS in 1997. He reported to the chief operating officer, Natarajan Ganapathy Subramaniam, and has been barred from coming to the office, although his email ID is still active, the executive said, as per the report.

"While there are complaints regarding code of conduct violations that arise from time to time, the company has robust processes for investigating and resolving them to closure," a TCS spokesperson said. The RMG division, estimated to be 3,000-strong, places almost 1,400 engineers, including new hires, on projects daily, averaging a placement per minute.

TCS ended last year with $27.93 billion in revenue and has 614,795 employees.

The two preferred routes for hiring experienced executives for IT services firms such as TCS are employee referral programmes and staffing firms. Even temporary workers or contractors are hired through staffing firms. This development, the first of its kind to hit TCS, comes after K. Krithivasan took over as the company¡¯s CEO on June 1.

"At least A Rs 100 Crore Scandal"

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"The entire senior leadership is shocked," said an executive at TCS. "This makes you question if there were enough guardrails and how such a thing could happen."

¡°The disturbing thing is that we don¡¯t know how pervasive and for how long this scam was continuing. We hired over 300,000 people, including contractors, only in the last three years. Even if 10% of the entire recruitment was made through selected staffing firms and the staffing firm gave a commission on every person recruited, you can imagine the scale of this scandal, I believe it will be at least ?100 crore."

The development comes as a surprise, as big organisations such as TCS are expected to have robust safeguards to prevent corruption that could hamper operations and sully their image.

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