HC directs IT firms to reveal yardstick in selecting colleges

The Madras High Court, in an interim order, has directed six top multinational IT firms to reveal the yardstick they adopt while selecting colleges for conducting campus interviews and while recruiting employees.
Justice N Kirubakaran also directed the NASSCOM to file a report on the issue with data from 2010 to 2017.
The judge passed the interim order on a public interest litigation (PIL), which alleged that top multinational IT companies were adopting corrupt practices in conducting campus interviews and in recruitments.
Noting that such a serious allegation could not be ignored, the judge said a common mechanism had to be evolved for conducting such interviews.

The judge then posed various queries to the IT majors, including the number of campus interviews conducted by them from 2010 to 2017, names of colleges which were chosen for the purpose, number of students selected through such interviews and number of actual placement orders provided.
He further asked the firms whether certain colleges were chosen for campus interviews only to boost the image of the institution concerned.
The judge then posted the matter toOctober 23for further hearing.
The petitioner, S K Natarajan, has sought a direction to the state government to implement the Tamil Nadu State Level Placement Programme in top IT firms in a fair and effective manner for holding a common campus recruitment programme.