Infosys sacks three employees held on fraud charges

Bengaluru, March 9 (IANS) Global software major Infosys on Monday sacked three of its techies who were arrested on a bribe charge levelled by the Income Tax Department, said a company official.

"The three employees have been terminated after a thorough internal investigation," said the city-based IT behemoth in an email to IANS.

Admitting that the company was aware of the allegations against the accused who have been found violating the company's policies by the tax authorities, the official said the company takes any breach of its policies and code of conduct seriously.

"We are cooperating with the authorities," the official added.

The three accused are Renugunta Kalyan Kumar, Prakash and Deveshwar Reddy.

"The three were arrested for contacting taxpayers and promising to get them tax rebates in lieu of 4 per cent of the total amount involved," Bengaluru South East Division Deputy Commissioner of Police Joshi Srinath Mahadev told IANS.

The DCP said there was a contract between the Income Tax Department and Infosys due to which company employees assigned for the IT work were privy to information on taxpayers.

"Whatever relevant information was received, these Infosys employees forwarded it to the Income Tax Department to make tax assessments and further processing," Mahadev said.

The officer said the techies were into fraudulent activities for a month and made Rs 4 lakh through illegal means, which has since been recovered.

On the complaint by Income Tax Department officials, the accused were booked for cheating and criminal breach of trust under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 406 and 420.