• The alacrity with which the honourable Supreme Court constituted a 9 member bench to review “Whether Privacy is a Fundamental Right” and the release of the voluminous judgement before the retirement of Chief Justice Mr Kehar indicates that the CJI wanted a “Historic” judgement to go on record. The Court has succeeded in this objective though it has raised many other questions which could surface because of the judgement.

Though the Order was a simple order re-iterating what we all agreed and practiced that “Privacy is an important human right respected in a democratic society”, it appears that it has prepared a ground which may enable the other bench reviewing the Aadhaar Act to take a decision to strike down the Aadhaar Act as unconstitutional.

While the final order does not give any indication of such an inference, the detailed reading of some parts of the Judgement where some reflections of the judges are available,  provide such an indication.

The reflections buried in different judgments are not binding as the order itself. But there is a possibility that any reflection of even a single judge,  could be quoted in future judgments as if that is part of the views of the Nine members of the bench.

It is important for us to remember that what is outside the order is only an opinion and if it is by one or two of the judges, it should be considered as the opinion of those judges and not as a “Unanimous” or “Majority” decision.

With this background we may try to observe some of the observations contained in the judgement of honourable Justice Chelmeshwar (Pages 267-310) which need some special mention.

The Judgement notes three aspects as the crux of the enquiry namely:

1. Is there a fundamental right to Privacy under the Constitution of India?
2.If it exists, where is it located?
3.What are the contours of such right?

The Supreme Court appeared perturbed that in the Aadhar Case, the Government made a statement that in view of the M.P.Sharma and Kharak Singh judgements, “Privacy may not be considered as a Fundamental Right under the Constitution”.

The existence of some earlier judgments which held such view was considered as a hindrance for the Aadhar bench to rule otherwise. There was therefore a need to arm the Aadhar Bench with a clarification that “Privacy is Fundamental Right” so that the argument of the Government on the lines that it is not could be nipped in the bud.

The Bench was therefore categorical to state that the M.P.Singh and Kharak Singh judgments are “Over ruled”.

In order to arrive at a judgement as it finally turned out, an elaborate justification has been provided through out the 547 page judgement form 100’s of earlier cases from India and abroad.

In the process of trying to defend “Privacy” as a “Fundamental Right” which perhaps was deliberately omitted by the framers of our Constitution,  the bench arrived at a new “Principle of Interpretation of Constitution”  that “Written Text of the Constitution” has no sanctity. Despite the noble intentions of the bench to protect Privacy even against the Aadhaar legislation, I consider that this new principle of interpretation of written text of constitution is a dangerous trend and needs to be reviewed.

The essence of the argument put up by the Judge to support inclusion of Privacy” as a “Fundamental Right” was that “Whatever is written in the Constitution is valid only in the light of the interpretation that the Supreme Court may provide”. In other words, this means that the Court holds a view that Constitution is written not in the legislature but in the Court room.

This was stated in no uncertain terms in page 284 of the Judgement in the reflections of Justice Chelmeshwar where it is stated

“To sanctify an argument that whatever is not found in the text of the Constitution cannot become a part of the Constitution would be too primitive an understanding of the Constitution and contrary to settled cannons of constitutional interpretation.”

The statement of Justice Chelmeshwar legitimizes the right of the Court to ignore the words of text used in the Constitution and give any meaning as the majority of judges of a bench agree upon.

It is difficult to agree with this contention that there is no “sanctity” in the words of the written constitution since if this is extended to other aspects of constitution, the respect for the Constitution may be in jeopardy.

Fortunately this is the reflection of only one of the 9 judges and not a part of the nine member order and it has to be treated as such.

Additionally, there is inherent contradictions within the judgement which also says

“The Constitution ….is a testament created for securing the goals professed in the Preamble…… ‘We the People’ of this country are the intended beneficiaries of the Constitution. It must be seen as a document written in the blood of innumerable martyrs..” etc.

If Constitution is a document written in blood of the martyrs, can what is omitted to be written be considered casually and inserted as an interpretation?…..

Should not the Bench asked the Government to amend the Constitution by adding the specific words into the Constitution and preserved the sanctity of the written text?

While the Court is quick to point out that the Government does not have the right to amend the Constitution easily, it asserts it’s own right to interpret it in a manner which is not written and what had been earlier upheld by M.P.Singh and Kharak Singh judgement.

This appears to a judicial over reach to usurp the function of a legislature which could be accomplished only with a two third majority perhaps with the approval of the majority of State legislatures.

At one place the Judgement says that “… Rights arise out of custom, contract or legislation, including a written Constitution…” but it does not accept that in Indian Custom, health information is not considered a “Private Information” and not sharing health condition with relatives is considered as a “Rejection of closeness of relationship”.

This thought that “though Privacy is not part of the written constitution in Part III, it should be implied” runs through the judgement and ends with a declaration that “Privacy is a Fundamental Right”.

The judgement will definitely create a hurdle for the Government in making any legislation in future since the Courts may take a view that some thing in the proposed law violates “Privacy” and therefore cannot be considered valid.

It will be a running battle for the Government to convince the Supreme Court for each of its legislation even if they are passed by both houses of Parliament.

It appears that what Mr Kapil Sibal as a senior functionary of Congress could not achieve in the Rajyasabha seems to have achieved by arguing in the Court and getting a favourable judgment.

To ordinary citizens however, it appears that the Judgement is an assertion of the Judiciary that their interpretation is supreme whether some thing is written or omitted in any law.

The judgment seriously undermines the power of legislature and leaves them with no power to make any law since even what is not written in the Constitution can be imputed by a group of Judges if they are in sufficient number.

Now this principle that “Written words in the Constitution is subordinate to the interpreted views of the majority of the judicial bench” will reflect in the Ram Janmabhoomi judgement or Uniform Civil Code or Special Status of Kashmir etc. In future even if a Constitutional amendment is passed by the Parliament, the judiciary can still use its “Power to Interpret” and give meaning which is not an intention of the legislature.

This could be one of the undesirable impacts of this Judgement.

In the light of the developments, I foresee that the Aadhaar Act will come under a serious threat of rejection in the coming days and cause a serious embarrassment to the Modi Government. Government needs to be prepared for this reverse. In the past we have seen legislature making retrospective laws.

In this judgement, Supreme Court paused the Aadhaar case and altered the judicial environment  for a case under process with this order. It was in effect like retrospective legislation and represented creative thinking of the outgoing CJI.

Naavi

[This is in continuation of our debate on the Privacy Judgement]

The Puttaswamy judgement from the 9 member bench of the Supreme Court which was hailed as a “Historic” judgement ended up with a simple declaration that “Right to Privacy is a Fundamental Right under the Indian Constitution which is subject to the reasonable restrictions applicable to all such rights”. Let us now look at how this decision affects the three stake holders we identified for this issue of “Privacy” namely,

While “Physical Privacy” can be defined as coming within “Touching distance” between two individuals, we still need to define whether “Touching distance” is zero cms or 5 or 10 centimeters and whether the distance has to be different for different body parts. Additionally, exception has to be made for Mumbai locals where physical privacy is most of the time less than zero cms.

“Cyber Privacy” depends on “Informational Proximity” and we can devise means of defining this. For example, in Facebook, “Friends” should have more accessibility than public. Similarly in Whats App group, the group members should have more proximity than e-mail contacts.

Hence some thing said in a Whats App group may not be a privacy invasion where as the same thing said in an e-mail could be. Some comment passed by a “Friend” in  Face book may not be a Privacy objection where as the same comment made by a non-friend could be.

Presently neither our Judiciary nor Police make distinction of who made a comment and whether the comment was made in a restricted group (eg Whats App) or in public place (eg Twitter, website) before charging them under defamation or obscenity etc. They will continue to make the same mistake under Privacy invasion also.

There was also no debate on Anonymity, Pseudonomity or “Regulated Anonymity” either as components of Information Privacy or as solutions to privacy protection.  Neither the petitioners nor the Government attorneys nor the advisers to the Judges brought out such issues as part of the Privacy debate.

The bench had an opportunity to debate such issues instead of simply debating earlier judgments, cutting and pasting the previous judgments into the current judgement and making it a 547 page volume.

Privacy as a Mental State

In my opinion, “Privacy” is a “State of mind”. A person may be amidst a crowd and still feel his privacy is not invaded. On the other hand he may be sitting in a closed room but filled with anxiety  that his privacy is being invaded.

“Mental Privacy” as a “State of Mind” of one individual is outside definition of the Physical definition of “Right to be left alone” or “Right to control dissemination of of privacy information”,.

It is also outside the definition of  Cyber Privacy as  “Keeping a certain virtual distance”.

It is for each individual to declare what are his/her mental privacy boundaries.

Section 66A of ITA 2008 which was scrapped,  did have a link to such concept but the Supreme Court which handled the Shreya Singhal Case did not understand it.

Most Cyber Stalking victims have a psychological condition where what is not “Privacy Invasion” for most may be considered by them as “Privacy Invasion”. This is a “Deemed Privacy Invasion” and would be a factor to be considered in the “State of the Mind” definition.

Under this concept Privacy boundaries would be different from a Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, Friend and Stranger, from a relative to a non relative, from a City bred person to a Villager and so on.

Using one yard stick for all would not be a good idea.

Without being able to define “Privacy” any attempt to grant a “Right” and call it “Fundamental” appears to be a fruitless exercise.

The Data Protection Legislation

Now when the new Data Protection law comes into being, it will again use the definition of “Personal Information” and “Sensitive Personal Information” as used in ITA 20008 and define what constitutes “Breach of Privacy of an individual through his information”. It will be a repetition of what is already there.

The Privacy of information in oral form or in hand written paper form would be outside the Data Protection Act or ITA 2008 and since there is no definition in the Constitution, we will not have any clarity on this issue.

In the absence of law for non electronic information, when a hand written diary of a person is accessed by another, he has to move the High Court or Supreme Court  as a “Constitutional Right” and claim compensation.

On the other hand, had the Nine Member bench advised the Government to amend the constitution and add “Privacy” as a specific right along with a definition, then there would have been progress in Privacy legislation in India. This was missed by the bench.

In this context, the 547 magnum opus is a great effort but of little practical utility for the Citizens.

Impact on Corporate Entities

The Corporate entities and Others who collect information from public in electronic form are today covered under ITA 2000/8. They have “Privacy Principles” equivalent to the international practices . ITA 2000/8 defines data protection in terms of a need to obtain consent and enter into a contract with the data subject.

The current judgement has no impact on this corporate handling of personal data.

One of the judges has briefly mentioned GDPR without naming it. But even he has not proceeded further to discuss what would be the impact of overlapping international privacy legislation on an Indian Corporate entity bound by the Indian laws on Privacy.

Does Indian law apply only to Indian subjects and international laws apply only to those international citizens based on their individual nationalities?.

It could be an interpretation. But the bench did not find it necessary to address such practical problems faced by the industry in India.

This is another point fo failure of this high profile decision.

Summary

Overall therefore I am disappointed with the Judgement and consider it as a “Lost Opportunity” to bring clarity to the Privacy regime in India.

Hashing the 547 pages of Privacy Judgement

Supreme Court Judgement on Privacy as a Fundamental Right… What changes?

Reference:

(This article is based on the copies of the Whistleblower’s letters which have now come to the public domain though they may be considered as not independently verified. In case there is any counter to the letter, we shall be glad to publish the same and make corrections as may be necessary…. Naavi)

The battle between the erstwhile CEO Mr Vishal Sikka supported by the Infosys Board on one side and Mr Narayana Murthy (NRN) supported by the erstwhile promoters of Infosys on the other side, has now reached a decisive stage with Mr Nandan Nilekani taking over as the de-facto head of the Company and Vishal Sikka leaving the Company.

Mr R.Sheshashayee the erstwhile Chairman has also resigned and Co-Chairman Mr Ravi Venkatesan has been relieved of his responsibilities. One more Director has also been relieved and Mr Vishal Sikka is being relieved immediately without waiting upto March 2018 as was originally announced.

Behind the current flare up, was an allegation of a serious mis-management and possible misappropriation of funds by Mr Vishal Sikka and a group of his close associates. This was alleged by an anonymous whistle blower who had written two letters to some of the share holders like NRN which was reportedly also copied to SEBI.  Since SEBI was aware of these letters as far back as February 17, 2017 (See report here) the reason why no action has been initiated so far is intriguing.

Mr NRN was upset that the Board had failed to exercise its due diligence and not taken action to prevent the alleged diversion of funds or necessary deterrant action after a complaint was received by the Board. After the Board released its letter accusing Mr NRN of being power hungry, interfering in management etc, it was clear that the Board was desperate and was acting childishly. It’s action was unbecoming of a professional Board of Directors. It was not difficult to speculate that this behaviour stemmed from a desperation born out of insecurity and guilty mind of the members of the Board.

The complaint had been made “Anonymously” by the whistle blower on two occassions. The complaint had alleged that the Panaya Deal in which an ailing company was taken over by Infosys, the valuation of the company was deliberately hiked to benefit Mr Vishal Sikka personally. Though the Board did order an audit subsequently, it had not made the audit findings public under the pretext that since the complaint was anonymous, there was no need for the audit report to be made public. There is a doubt that the audit itself may be a sham but the reluctance of the Board to make it public has raised further doubts.

This issue obviously became critical in the tussle etween NRN and the Board. In the meantime one of the associates of Vishal Sikka who was part of the Panaya negotiation and considered a very close confidant of Mr Sikka enjoying special privileges in the Company, resigned and walked away. Last week Mr Vishal Sikka also submitted his resignation leaving it to the Board to handle the unfinished battle with NRN and others.

Now the alleged letters written by the Whistle Blower have come to the public domain and raise serious questions not only on Mr Sikka and the Board of Infosys headed by Mr R Sheshashayee but also on regulators like SEBI which has remained silent on the issue so far.

Mr Ravi Venkatesan’s meeting of MR Arun Jaitely last week and a spate of planted stories in the media indicating a public relations exercise in favour of projecting Vishal as a victim of a greedy and haughty NRN had raised further doubt that Mr Sikka and his friends were trying to manipulate people in power. Perhaps Mr Jaitely and BJP may be facing some kind of pressure also from Israel diplomatically because one of their companies is part of the scandal.

Copy of the letters may be found here.

If one goes through the letters, it is clear that the matter is very serious and goes much beyond the “Corporate Governance” issue. It involves unfair payments to Mr Sikka both as fat salary hikes and payment of travel expenses, reimbursement of his personal security expenses etc. It also involves hiring of Sikka’s confidants and payment of huge severance compensation, approval of expenses without the approval of CFO for his select favourite employees etc.

This is certainly not only a “Corporate Governance Issue” and could be a board level fraud like Enron or Satyam and requires some immediate action from the regulators.

The first major allegation was regarding the severance pay paid to Mr Rajiv Bansal, the former CFO who left after the Panaya deal. As per the contract he was to be paid a severance pay of 3 months salary. But he was actually offered a severance pay of 30 months salary far in excess of what he was entitled to (according to the whistle blower’s complaint).

Which fool of a Corporate Director approve such deals unless there is a kickback for all the decision makers? … is a natural question that arises…..But the Infosys Board actually approved it.

This single instance was sufficient to indicate that there was a fraudulent attempt to siphon off share holder’s funds to the outgoing person in a indiscriminate fashion.

After Mr NRN raising his voice, it is reported that the actual payment made was less. Instead of Rs 17 crores proposed, Rs 5 crores was paid to the outgoing employee. But the attempt to pay an excessive amount was real and the Board approval was also real. Hence an Attempt to defraud the company was real.(As per the Whistleblower’s letter).

The speculation therefore is that Rajiv Bansal was sought to be paid “Hush Money” so that he would not go public with the irregularities in the Panaya deal which was over valued just to facilitate kickbacks. The Whistleblower’s letter has full details about what has reportedly transpired between Rajiv Bansal and the Board.

Under these circumstances, an immediate investigation ought to have been ordered by SEBI. But it has failed for reasons it needs to explain. The fact that SEBI is keeping quiet about this does not show SEBI in good light. The fact that the Finance Ministry under Mr Jaitely is also keeping its mouth shut indicates that there is a conspiracy in sweeping the fraud under the carpet and there could be a need for a Court intervention without which politicians and bureaucrats may not do justice.

Possibility of Tampering of Evidence

The whistle blower has also indicated the source of evidence to support his allegations which are a direct charge that the Board of Directors are guilty of serious corporate frauds. He says that there are many e-mails in which evidence can be found.

However since no action has been taken so far, there is every possibility of evidence having been erased compounding the financial frauds with Cyber Crimes which need immediate forensic investigation by a reliable authority.

It is presumed that the e-mails would be in the servers of Infosys only and they have to be now considered as potential evidence in a potential fraud investigation. Any deletion of the incriminating e-mails from the server would render the CTO and CISO of Infosys an accessory to the fraud for deleting and obliterating evidentiary files. Hence the IT department of Infosys should take immediate steps to archive relevant evidence in the custody of an independent custodian who would be outside the influence of the accused.

Modi Government may create another “Vijay Mallya mistake”

The two letters of the Whistle blower have been with SEBI for some time now but SEBI is not interested in taking any action. This is a deliberate inaction that assists Mr Sikka. Now that his resignation has been accepted and his severance package determined, he would not have any reasons to visit India and will remain abroad outside the jurisdiction of Indian law.

Mr Ravi Venkatesan who met Mr Arun Jaitely recently after the resignation of Vishal Sikka could have pleaded with Mr Arun Jaitely to bury the fraud, citing some reason or the other. Mr Jaitely may also be considering the “Israeli angle” as a diplomatic reason to agree not to act at least for now so that Mr Sikka can reach safe havens.

As a result, like Mr Vijay Mallya, Mr Sikka will evade legal scrutiny in India.

Fortunately however, Infy ADRs are listed in USA and there is a possibility that US authorities may move in and take action even if SEBI can be silenced in India and Indian political system is amenable to being bent as required. Already, a class suit has been filed in USA and hence it will be difficult for Mr Vishal Sikka to escape scrutiny in US courts.

However it is necessary for SEBI to show that it is honest and cannot be bribed into silence. I therefore urge SEBI to immediately take all required action including securing of evidence to conduct an independent investigation to find out if the allegations are true.

Further it is also necessary for CBI/ED/Serious Frauds Division of MOF to join in the investigation. Any attempt to tamper with the evidence as we have seen in many other sensitive cases should be stopped by not delaying action.

In the past, the Finance Ministry has shown its adeptness only in bolting the stable after the horses have fled so that it can appear that action is being taken without actually hurting the accused. Same thing may happen even in the case of Infosys fraud.

This is time for Mr Modi’s Government therefore to show that any illegal acts in a Company leading to cheating of share holders which include many public bodies such as LIC and Mutual Funds would not be tolerated.

If no action is taken immediately, it could only mean that the Government is amenable to compromising with corruption in the private sector and this would not be in tune with the image of Mr Modi.

New Management under Mr Nandan should not fall into a trap themselves

As regards the new management under Mr Nandan, I would like to place a word of caution.

There will be a temptation not to go public with all the murky things which has gone behind the scene since the the apparent problem has been removed with Mr Sikka and some Board members going out. Some corporate and legal advisers of the Company will certainly advise Mr Nandan to forget the past and focus on what needs to be done to regain investor confidence and client confidence.

There is no doubt that focusing on new business related issues are important. But it is also not possible not to take action when a Corporate fraud appears to have been committed.

But, if Mr Nandan and his team fail to take action, then they will be guilty of the same offence which the erstwhile Board was guilty of… remaining silent on fraud which is a “Passive assistance” to the fraud.

We may note that Mr Rajiv Bansal who could have been a whistle blower earlier, chose to accept a settlement and became part of the suppression of the fraud exposing himself to being considered as an accomplice to the fraud.

Similarly, not taking action on Vishal Sikka and some of the Board members either for the sake of fear of reputation loss or as a matter of courtesy etc, will make Mr Nandan and his new team  also guilty in the eyes of law of shielding the offenders.

It will also provide a good defense to Mr Sikka in the US Courts where the defense would be “Even the new management did not consider that there was any serious irregularities and allowed Mr Sikka an honorable exit without any disciplinary proceedings”.

There is therefore no alternative to Mr Nandan  but to initiate strict disciplinary action against Mr Sikka and be seen as taking all steps necessary to bring the culprits if any to book.

Any other decision would be a mistake.

We shall keep watching how the situation develops.

Naavi

The 9 Bench judgement of the Supreme Court on “Privacy as a Fundamental Right” following the petition of Justice K.S.Puttaswamy and Others, runs into 547 pages of discussion which makes a great material for law colleges as teaching material on a number of earlier judgements. Some of the judgements such as  M P.Sharma, Kharak Singh, Maneka and Cooper have been referred to repeatedly and final opinion of the 9 member bench rendered as the final wisdom applicable until another day when a 11 member bench may review and over turn the current finding. Probably this may not happen in our life time and hence this judgement can be considered as a judgement that will be etched in stone for the time being.

It is however also important for us to understand the “Essence” of the entire discussion that is presented in the judgement without being confused with the thoughts that ran in the minds of each of the judges when they wrote their judgement.

It is fashionable to hail the Judgement as “Historic”, “Path Breaking”, etc., and let us also add that the “Words of Wisdom will be etched in stone for times to come”.

However, we also need to consider what is the “Net Effect” of this judgement and does it make any significant difference to our life. If so, the benefits have to be identified and presented separately. If not, we need to consider if all this hype was worth the paper in which it was written on.

The Judgement has been presented in 7 parts including the last partwhich is the “Order” signed by all the 9 judges.

Part I (Pages 1-266)  is the common judgement written by four Judges namely Justices  Jagadish Singh Kehar, R.K. Agarwal, Dr Y.Chandrachud, and Abdul Nazeer.

Part II (Pages 267-310) is the judgement of Justice Chelameshwar.

Part III (Pages 311-350) is the judgement of Justice S.A. Bobde.

Part IV (Pages 351-472) is the judgement of Justice R.F. Nariman.

Part V (Pages 472-496)  is the Judgement of Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre and

Part VI (Pages 497-543) is the judgement of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.

Part VII (pages 544-547) is the order signed by all Judges.

In reading the judgement we need to recognize that Part VII is the operating part of the judgement and all other 542 pages are reflections preceding the final order. Some of the individual judgements may express some “Conclusions” at the end of their parts which can be considered as more than “Reflections” in the body of the individual judgements. In interpreting the judgement, we should try to avoid being confused with “Reflections” and “Individual Conclusions” with the “Order”. “Individual Conclusions not also reflected in the Order” (if any) may be collated to find out if they constitute a “Majority Conclusion” or not. If it is a majority conclusion, it may have greater value.

Keeping this view, let us first record here the final order which is the operating part of the Judgement.

It is as follows:

The reference is disposed of in the following terms:

(i) The decision in M P Sharma which holds that the right to privacy is not protected by the Constitution stands over-ruled;

(ii) The decision in Kharak Singh to the extent that it holds that the right to privacy is not protected by the Constitution stands over-ruled;

(iii) The right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

(iv) Decisions subsequent to Kharak Singh which have enunciated the position in (iii) above lay down the correct position in law.

The entire 547 page judgement therefore has just one line of gist namely that in India, “Right to Privacy” is protected as an intrinsic part of “Right to Life and Personal Property” under Article 21 and as part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

This is the hash value of the judgement as per Naavi algorithm!

We need to then start debating on what difference does this judgement make to the life of

a) An Individual on the street who is the common Citizen whose “Right to Privacy” is being defended by the battery of 9 judges.

b) The Corporates who need to struggle with Data Protection obligation under ITA 2000/8 and steer clear of the liabilities under Section 43A or 72A in particular and many other sections of ITA 2000/8 along with the GDPR, HIPAA and a host of international laws that affect the lives of an Indian Registered Corporate entity.

c) The Government which has already made many laws such as Aadhaar, Right to Information, Section 66A of ITA 2008 (now scrapped) and need to make many more laws in future to carry on its Governance amidst the opposition of political parties not in power some of whom like Kapil Sibal was part of influencing this judgement

Let’s try to do it in the future posts.

[Disclaimer: The objective of this discussion is just to add another view point for the academic debate.

It is admitted and declared that these are the views of an ordinary citizen of the country and not an expert in the Indian Constitutional law.

It is also not meant to praise or criticize the judgement in question nor the Government of the day or the opposition though it  may appear so in parts.

It is an opinion on a matter of grave importance to the development of Jurisprudence in India in the spirit of the presumed “Right of Free Expression” in our Constitution as it exists today with more than a century (101*) of amendments since its inception, most of them by the parties who are not in power today but sincerely tried since independence to change the face of India so that they could get more and more votes from the Indian public by dividing the country which was already divided and profess to continue to do so in future also]

Naavi

Reference:

It gives me great pleasure to wish the visitors a Happy Ganesha Chaturthi, a popular festival in India, particularly because it also brings with it the happy news about Mr Nandan Nilekani coming back to Infosys as Executive Chairman. Ganesha is the lord worshipped for removing all obstacles and I wish he would remove all obstacles before Nandan Nilekani to put Infosys back to its past glory.

I am not saying this as a share holder of Infosys but as a Bangalorean who always felt proud that Infosys was more than a “Company”. It was a symbol of pride for all of us as a Company with certain principles and which showed that a promoter who started the company with Rs 10,000/- borrowed from his wife could create a global company. Despite more high profile jet setting CEOs we have seen, Infosys promoters were always considered as well mannered, humble gentlemen who would be respected for what they are as human beings apart from their industry standing.

When the erstwhile Board members decided to attack Mr NRN through the public statement, it was therefore clear that it was their behaviour which came out as disgusting and unbecoming of occupying the position of Directors of a Company like Infosys. Some of them have now resigned and others need to also quit soon. They are neither fit to be Chairman or Co Chairman but also as independent Directors.

I am sure that with the restoration of confidence of the investors on Nandan led Infosys, the employees will work with a new found motivation and even the clients will realize that a company with motivated employees and a management with principles are more trust worthy than a company managed by a scam oriented management team. I wish Mr NRN and other members of promoters who had distanced themselves from the Company in the last three years should do their best to ensure that their child will get back to health soon and become stronger than it ever was.

Naavi