The bluff must be called

One is tempted to take Phaneesh Murthy's claims with a bagful of salt

If Phaneesh Murthy is to be believed, he is being stalked by "extortionists" for the last 10 years at least. Reka Maximovitch was the first to "extract" money from the once-upon-a-time blue-eyed boy of Infosys. Jennifer Griffith followed soon after - in October 2003. Last Tuesday, Murthy was forced to resort to his favourite phrase - another "close friend-turned extortionist" emerged in the form of Araceli Roiz, investor relations head of iGate, which was Murthy's employer till Tuesday.

No one has been able to reach any definite conclusion on who the actual victim was as both the earlier cases were settled out of court with substantial money changing hands. But one is tempted to take Murthy's assertions with a bagful of salt for one reason - he has consistently failed to retain his initial aggressive stand on his innocence. In the latest case also, he has started off on a defiant note, but his track record doesn't inspire much confidence over whether he will be able to maintain that stand for long given the startling charges made by Roiz's lawyers that she was being "pursued" since May 2010 by Murthy, who, according to her, even tried to convince her to go for an abortion.
 

Consider, first, the case involving Griffith who filed a suit in a California court alleging that Murthy sexually harassed her while she was an employee of Infosys. In response, Murthy, who had by then joined iGate, said through a conference call from Fremont that he "will fight the hell out of the case". Murthy also said Griffith and her lawyers were out to make money from him. (This is roughly the same line of argument Murthy has put forward in the latest sexual harassment case.)

But barely a year later and shortly before the trial was about to begin, Murthy preferred to settle the matter out of court by paying Griffith $800,000. In a rather pompous statement, Murthy said his decision to settle the case was driven entirely by the growth momentum iGate was seeing.

It's difficult to accept the logic: a CEO preferring to meekly settle for an out-of-court settlement in such a serious case just because the company is doing well and he doesn't want to get distracted! A man of Murthy's considerable intelligence would have surely figured out that no one, not even an ardent admirer, would buy this argument.

Or, take the statements after Infosys went in for a $3 million out-of-court settlement with Maximovitch who was Murthy's executive secretary and filed charges of sexual harassment and wrongful termination of her employment against him and the company.

Reacting to the settlement, Murthy initially said he was not a party to the settlement as it might not have been the route he would have liked to take, but adopted the silence-is-golden theory when the then Infosys Chairman N R Narayana Murthy refuted his claims by saying "Phaneesh did consent to the agreement". That's not all. When Infosys' legal counsel said the company would not like to respond to his statement on the settlement at this point of time since it will "cause him acute embarrassment", all that Phaneesh Murthy could say was "the episode is behind us now and we need to move ahead both personally and professionally".

One hopes Murthy would not repeat himself for the third time.

Moving beyond one individual, the companies concerned also haven't covered themselves with glory. Consider the ridiculous statement made by iGate when asked why it took Murthy on board even though he was charged with sexual harassment not once but twice in his previous job. The company's emailed response on Tuesday evening said the investigations into the sexual harassment claims against Murthy found that "both the charges were unsubstantiated".

Like iGate has done now, Infosys had also sacked Murthy but after a considerable delay, opening itself to the charge that it had tried to keep the issue under wraps for a long time. The statements made by the Infosys brass after the Maximovitch case became public also didn't speak very highly of the processes followed by the company at that time regarding sexual harassment cases. For example, Infosys said it initially relied entirely on Phaneesh Murthy's assertion that the case was very minor in nature, and that he would be able to handle it himself. It beats logic to say the company was unaware of a restraining order passed in a court against its head of global sales.

Infosys had then reacted adversely towards comments in media that companies often treat the moral fibre of "economically valuable" persons with kid gloves. And Murthy no doubt was more than economically valuable to both iGate and Infosys. After all, he is the one credited with bringing marketing savvy into the information technology industry. He's the one who took Infosys' global sales from $2 million to $700 million in just 10 years.

Whatever Murthy might say, the fact of the matter is that all his professional achievements will now be overshadowed by the fact that he was the man who got entangled in sexual harassment cases not once, but three times.