TCS job scam allegation: Company says no scam, only breach of code

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has denied a report that stated that a few top operatives were running a bribe-for-job scam. According to the Mint, four senior officials were sacked for accepting bribes from recruitment agencies in exchange for providing jobs to their candidates. The Mint said that a whistleblower complained that this scam has been going on for several years. In a filing at the stock exchange, TCS however said that there was no recruitment scam, but only a breach of code by a few.

The Mint report said that the recruitment activities in TCS were handled by the Resource Management Group (RMG) and the complaint was primarily against ES Chakravarthy, who headed the department. However, TCS said, “This [the scam] does not involve any fraud by or against the company and has no financial impact. The issue relates to breach of Company’s Code of Conduct by certain employees and vendors providing contractors, and no key managerial person of the Company has been found to be involved."

TCS also denied RMG’s role in recruitment. “RMG is responsible for allocation of available resources to various projects and in case of any shortfall, fill such requirements through contractors. The complaint referred to in the article relates to the hiring of such contract resources employed by the contractors," the company said.

The company said it launched a review to examine the allegations and found that there has been no fraud but the company's code of conduct was breached. “This does not involve any fraud by or against the Company and has no financial impact. The issue relates to breach of Company's Code of Conduct by certain employees and vendors providing contractors, and no key managerial person of the company has been found to be involved,” TCS said.

Though TCS acknowledged that there was a complaint and there were anomalies, it did not delve further into it. The company also did not disclose if anyone had been sacked and if it cut ties with any external agency.

Mint had reported that four senior officials were sacked from RMG and three recruitment firms have been banned by the company.

An executive who spoke to Business Today said that the company had hired 30,000 people in the past three years.

(With IANS inputs)