Opinion | A cry-wolf whistleblower at Infosys

Another Infosys employee seems agitated by what he sees as transgressions by its chief executive officer (CEO) Salil Parekh. The anonymous Infoscion, who claims to be working in the software major’s finance department, has written a letter to its chairman, Nandan Nilekani, listing out charges against the CEO that involve expenses. Parekh, it says, has not relocated to Bengaluru, where the firm is headquartered, and works from Mumbai instead. As a result, goes the gripe, the company has so far incurred ₹22 lakh on Parekh’s air travel and local transportation. The letter goes on to allege that many employees have taken a cue from that and started working from home.

To top it all, the whistleblower also has a theory of an ulterior motive that is gleefully ascribed to the CEO. Parekh, the letter alleges, has stock market investments in several firms, and he stays in Mumbai to oversee those.

The investment portfolio story is easy to dismiss as bizarre. Thanks to internet connectivity, stocks can be tracked from almost anywhere on the planet. As for travel expenses, while Infosys founder CEOs may have exercised frugality, there is nothing extraordinary about top executives piling up such bills. Their time is valuable, a vast sum of shareholder wealth is at stake, and how they optimize their schedule to generate value is best judged by them. Globally, CEOs of megacorps are known to use a combination of private jets and helicopters to save time and personal energy. In general, the whistleblower seems to be crying wolf.