Mahindra Satyam cracks the whip on fraud employees

Mahindra Satyam has begun a countrywide crackdown against employees that joined the organisation using fake certificates and fraudulent means after it found some people had circumvented the company's background verification process, a senior official said today.

According to Mahindra Satyam Chief People Officer Hari T, the background verification of some of the 21,000 employees currently working in India will be completed by September-end and he warned that any employee found to have got into the company through fraudulent means will be slapped with a cheating case.

Fraud incidents have so far been exposed at the company's Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore offices, Hari said.

He said the fraudsters even managed to hoodwink the verification process and tried to join the company.

"We are now doing multiple checks of the employees whom we suspect. We have instructed our background verification agencies to personally visit the office where the candidate claimed to have worked earlier. Some fraudulent and organised agencies even run call centres, which when called for verification vouch for the candidate," Hari told PTI.

He said the company is very serious about such practices and they have already filed cases against seven such people and are in the process of filing cases against three dozen others.

He said the issue became noticeable when the experience certificates of certain organisations were found suspect.

The incident prompted Mahindra Satyam to check all the employees that claimed to have worked in those organisations.

"There are other incidents we found where people were lured for money and given fake appointment letters of Mahindra Satyam. When they come here with the appointment letters, we found that they were fake," Hari said, explaining another type of fraud the company is facing.

He said the menace not only spoils the industry, but may also create unpleasant concerns among foreign partners over security issues.

According to him, the company has engaged three agencies for the employee background verification process.