Former Infosys chief financial officer V. Balakrishnan on Saturday sought the discontinuance of certain board members in the light of the company filing a settlement plea with SEBI on corporate governance lapses relating to severance payment to its former CFO Rajiv Bansal.
‘Highly untenable’
“I think the continuation of certain board members like the erstwhile co-chairman (Ravi Venkatesan) and the audit committee chairman (Roopa Kudva) looks highly untenable in the light of the current development of the company filing consent agreement with SEBI over Bansal’s severance payment case,” Mr. Balakrishnan said.
In view of the current development, it is all the more important to restructure the board and fill it with people of high integrity and stature, he added. The scathing communication to the stock exchanges blaming Infosys co-founder N. R. Narayana Murthy for all of the board’s lapses was ‘unprecedented,’ Mr. Balakrishnan, a known supporter of Mr. Murthy, said.
He also said all along, the board had consistently denied any wrong-doing and in fact blamed Mr. Murthy, terming his questioning as a “misguided campaign.”
Earlier, Mr. Murthy had accused Infosys and its board of failing in disclosure and corporate governance norms. The board of Infosys owed an apology to Mr. Murthy and should take steps to retract that statement, Mr. Balakrishnan said.
