Infosys pays Rs 6 lakh in fees to settle ex-CFO severance payment row

Infosys on Monday said it has paid Rs 6 lakh as compounding fees in the matter related to severance agreement with former CFO Rajiv Bansal.

In November last year, Infosys (along with certain current and former key managerial personnel) submitted applications with the Registrar of Companies for compounding of certain alleged offences that pertain to matters related to the severance agreement executed with Bansal in October 2015.

Generally, compoundable offences are those which can be settled by paying certain amount of money.

Through the compounding process, it had sought to resolve the alleged offences. "The Regional Director (South East Region) vide its orders dated February 25, 2020, (received on March 2, 2020) has agreed to compound the alleged offences applied for, subject to payment of compounding fees of Rs 6 lakh..." Infosys said in its filing on Monday.

It added that these compounding fees have been paid. The fee of Rs 6 lakh consists of Rs 1.5 lakh in respect of each application for each alleged offence by the company and Rs 25,000 by each of the current and former key managerial personnel for each alleged offence, the filing said.

In its application, Infosys had sought to resolve the alleged offence relating to the company not seeking prior and separate approvals required under the Act from the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, Audit Committee and the Board of Directors and not making requisite disclosures.

Infosys had agreed to pay Bansal a severance amount of Rs 17.38 crore or 24 months of salary, but the company suspended payments after he got Rs 5 crore as co-founder N R Narayana Murthy and others objected to the package as excessive.

Bansal's severance payout has been one of the contentious issues Infosys founders had raised to allege governance lapses at the Bengaluru-based firm.