Former Infoscions slam board

Over 80 former Infoscions, some of who are also shareholders of the company, submitted a letter to the IT giant's board on Thursday demanding that it withdraw the statement issued last Friday that slammed co-founder N R Narayana Murthy for the crisis in the company.

They said all the issues raised by Murthy deserve a data oriented response from the board with fact-based explanations. “...we are used to data and disclosures speaking for themselves -that is the culture Mr Murthy had built and made us all believe is essential -`In God we trust; everyone else brings data to the table' used to be our adage in everything we did, and there were no exceptions!“ the letter said.

The Infoscions, who said they had all worked with Murthy for many years, noted that he is a person with not very insignificant shareholding and with a significant emotional investment (in the company), and so “he has every right to seek answers and ask for higher levels of disclosure to ensure Infosys continues to have the highest standards of corporate governance.“

Murthy has been demanding that the board make public the reports of the investigation agencies that went into issues related to the Panaya acquisition and the process by which some top executives, including former CFO

Rajiv Bansal

, were granted large severance packages.

In the last 48 hours, former Infoscions formed a group called `Governance First' on WhatsApp and a closed Facebook group that saw many sign ups. Some of the employees are those who joined as early as in 1984.

“We are pained at what's happening in Infosys. We know the man, we know the leader, we know his vision, his values and what he stands for. We felt the board has been very unfair. I run my own company today, but I am deeply associated with Infosys. He (Murthy) asked questions which are pertinent as a shareholder and it is for the board to have responded to his queries,“ said George Varghese, who was with the company from 1996 to 2010, and was the head of banking and capital markets in Australia and New Zealand. He is now the co-founder and CEO at ET Marlabs.