Murthy spares Sikka, hits out at chairman Seshasayee

The bruising boardroom battle between the founders and the board of the country’s second largest software services firm, Infosys, which saw board members raise concerns over lapses in governance took a turn for the worse on Friday as founder NRN Murthy made it clear that his differences were not so much with CEO Vishal Sikka as much as with chairman of the board R. Seshasayee, with calls from former board members for the chairman’s head to roll.

Mr Murthy defended Mr Sikka saying that he has done a good job. In an interview, Mr Murthy said however that certain acts of the board regarding corporate governance could have been better.

In a war of words that many said was similar to the damaging row at Tata Sons, the contradicting views of board members and founders pertaining to the salary and severance packages paid to the Clevel executives has driven a wedge among shareholders of the IT bellwether.

“For sure, we don’t see another Tata happening,” a boardroom source said.

The crisis has been simmering in the boardroom for several months now. However it came out in the open when, the founder of Infosys, Narayana Murthy questioned the board over the `23 crore severance paid to the company’s ex CFO, Rajiv Bansal.

The severance is usually paid to departing employees on the basis on an agreement that keeps details of the payment, and information about the company, confidential.

Infosys’ former CFO V. Balakrishnan said that the incumbent chairman of the board, R. Seshasaaye should be held responsible for the lapses in corporate governance and that he should resign. He also said the board had become “lax on corporate governance and was undermining the values on which the company was built”.