Washington, February 26
An American employee of Infosys has filed a case against the Indian company accusing it of systematic visa and tax fraud to increase profits.

In his 13-page complaint filed before an Alabama Court early this week, Jack Palmer alleged that Infosys sent lower level and unskilled foreigners to the US to work in full-time positions at its customer sites in direct violation of immigration laws.

Palmer, who says he worked for Infosys as 'Principal - Enterprise Solutions' since August 2008, alleged that the company was paying these employees in India for full-time work in the US without withholding federal or state income taxes, and overbilled customers for the labour costs of these employees.

After the federal government restricted the H-1B programme in 2009, Palmer claimed he was sent to Bangalore for planning meetings.

'During one of the meetings, Infosys management discussed the need to, and ways to, 'creatively' get around the H-1B limitations and process and to work the system in order to increase profits and the value of Infosys' stock,' he said.

'The decision was made by management to start using the B-1 visa program to get around the H-1B restrictions,' Palmer alleged. Palmer also alleged that Infosys managers in the US and India asked him to write false welcome letters, and he refused.

He was then transferred to another project in a different division, Palmer alleged. — IANS

Bangalore: Reacting to the Rs 450-crore notice served on Infosys by the income tax department for tax evasion, the Bangalore-based software company today said the step by the I-T department was arbitrary. “This is an arbitrary order without clearly looking at the merits of the issues. Most of our onsite work has a linkage with our offshore work. We had made a detailed representation to the department on this issue. We are a company which complies with law, both in substance and form, in all the jurisdictions where we operate”, a statement issued by the company quoted its CFO V Balakrishnan as having said. Yesterday, a notice was issued on Infosys for wrongfully claiming tax exemption on onsite services by declaring them as software exports. “Revenue from software development activity and technical manpower deputed abroad have not been considered as export income eligible for deduction under 10A/10B/10AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961”, he further said. The sections pertain to tax-free income arising out of exports. — TNS

New Delhi, February 26
NALCO CMD Abhay Kumar Srivastava, his wife and two others, arrested in an alleged bribery case, were produced in Delhi court today which allowed CBI to quiz them in its custody for five days.

In a related development, the government suspended Srivastava and asked B L Bagra, Director (Finance), NALCO, to assume additional charge of CMD till further orders. Srivastava was to chair a meeting of the NALCO Board of Directors in Bhubaneshwar today. The meeting has now been deferred.

Terming the allegations against the accused as ‘serious and grave’, Special CBI Judge O P Saini sent the accused to remand till March 3.

“Being the CMD of NALCO, Srivastava holds a very high ranking post… In these circumstances, the case is required to be thoroughly investigated and for that sustained interrogation of the accused persons is required. Accordingly, I am satisfied that the prayer for police custody of the accused persons is justified,” the court said. The agency, however had demanded seven days custody in its remand application.

The CBI had arrested the accused on Friday and recovered about 10 kg of gold bricks and jewellery valued at around Rs 2.13 crore as also Rs 30 lakh in cash.

CBI Special Public Prosecutor submitted that B L Bajaj, acted as a middlemen, to obtain favour for Bhatia Group of Companies from Srivastava and has received huge illegal gratification from G S Bhatia, the CMD of Bhatia Group of Companies, on behalf of the NALCO's CMD.

Bajaj was working as a conduit between coal suppliers and Srivastava and had close relations with Bhatia. He used three phone numbers to talk to him, the agency added. The wives of the accused came under scanner as they converted the illegal gratification received from Bhatia Group of Companies into gold.

Anita collected the gold bricks and handed it over to Chandani. “Gold worth Rs 2.13 cores and Rs 9.5 lakh in cash were recovered from locker number 127 of Bank of Maharashtra while Rs 15 lakh was found from Bank of India locker,” CBI said.

“Their custody is required to unearth the entire conspiracy and also find the files relating to the contract for which the bribe amount was given to Srivastava,” the CBI said.

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