TCS recruitment case: Banned six employees and six staffing firms, says Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran

India's largest IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday informed that it has banned six recruitment firms for unfair practices and banned six employees after finding them guilty of accepting favours from these staffing firms in the appointment of contractual workers. Confirming this development, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said that action was taken in this regard after receiving complaints from whistleblowers. 

Furthermore, TCS is also investigating the role of three more of its employees, he said while speaking at the TCS annual general meeting.

In response to shareholders' questtions, he said, ""We have banned six employees and also six companies."

Regarding the whisteblower complaints, he said that the company received one complaint pertaining to appointment of business associates or contractual workers in the US, and the other one regarding hiring in India, in late February and March, after which it investigated the allegations.

With regards to the favours received by the banned employees, Chandrasekaran said that he cannot quantify the favours these employees received, but the employees in questions behaved in a way that favoured certain firms.

"The company will look at the whole BA (Business Associate) supplier management process and see what the weaknesses are and will completely tighten the process to ensure that we do not have such incidents," he said.

Earlier this month, reports had suggested that TCS had suspended certain staff-members for violating the company's code of conduct and some had speculated that the gains made by the employees ranged around Rs 100 crore.