Deleted official emails could have revealed reasons of former Infosys CFO Rajiv Bansal's suspended severance payments

The reason behind the suspension of former Infosys chief financial officer Rajiv Bansal's severance payments could be found in a set of deleted official emails, two people aware of the board's deliberations on the matter told ET.

After quitting Infosys in October 2015, Bansal was awarded more than Rs 17 crore in severance, while some of the company's founders called it outsized. The figure was disclosed in May 2016, leading to pushback by the founders and Infosys paid out about Rs 5 crore before suspending the payments in June 2016.

While some media reports suggested that it was the criticism by founder NR Narayana Murthy that led to the suspension, ET sources say that it happened after the company discovered that Bansal had forwarded official emails to his private email account and then deleted them from the office system after resigning from the firm.

Bansal has, however, denied forwarding or deleting any official mails. As per him, the emails that he had deleted were not confidential or official and were rather personal in nature.

"A number of mails have been deleted after being forwarded to his personal ID and it is being looked into legally," said one of the people cited above.


(Image source Huffington Post)