Late on Thursday, there were reports that an out-of-court settlement might be preferred by some of the parties involved in the case.Facebook exchanges between Roiz's friends show that till May 14 things were seemingly normal with posts talking about 'Araceli and Phaneesh having a baby girl'. But Murthy did not make any mention of this in the press conference he held on Tuesday. Roiz is said to have realized she was pregnant in March. The law firm said she was currently on medical leave.
Roiz's law firm, the California-based Aiman-Smith & Marcy, has said that it would take bothiGate and Murthy to court. It said Roiz was pregnant with Murthy's child and that when Murthy discovered this, he pressured Roiz to have an abortion. "When she refused , he told her to leave the company, quietly, to protect his position as CEO," a statement from the law firm said. TOI was the first to report about Roiz being pregnant in its late editions on Thursday.
Murthy in his press conference described Roiz's allegations as an attempt at extortion . Roiz's law firm called this comment "defamatory and a despicable attempt to blame the victim, who only wants to somehow continue her career and support her child".
"It was not until after Ms Roiz refused to do so (an abortion ) and informed him that she would be seeking legal representation and her lawyers contacted Mr Murthy's counsel that he reluctantly informed the board of the relationship , just before the board would have learned on its own from other sources," the law firm said.
iGate fired Murthy for not having informed the board about his relationship with a subordinate, something that is mandatory as per the company's policies.
Roiz's law firm said Murthy began pursuing Roiz shortly after she joined iGate's Fremont office in 2010. This squares with what some in the company said that they had seen the two together for almost three years. Roiz, they said, would accompany Murthy , who is based in the US, on most of his domestic and international trips. It is claimed that Roiz would stay in Murthy's Whitefield villa on her Bangalore visits.
Murthy, however, had said in his press conference that the relationship began only a few months ago. The law firm said Roiz's nominal supervisor was iGate's CFO Sujit Sircar. "However, Mr Sircar was based in India, so Ms Roiz's day-to-day supervisor was Mr Murthy," the firm said. At the time of going to print, Sircar had not responded to TOI's questions on whether he was aware of the relationship between Murthy and Roiz.
The firm - whose attorneys previously represented Reka Maximovitch and Jennifer Griffith in sex harassment lawsuits against Murthy for his actions while employed at Infosys — said that the only reason Murthy was able to engage in "these abusive and harassing actions" was because he was Roiz's employer.
"The CEO of any company, as Mr Murthy was here, has tremendous economic and personal power over his subordinates. Thus, Ms Roiz was dependent on her continued employment for her basic living expenses and, further, Mr Murthy conditioned her further employment and career advancement opportunities on her entering into a relationship with him which, eventually and reluctantly, she did. When she tried to extricate herself from the relationship, he reduced her responsibilities, threatened her continued employment, and pressured her to continue the relationship," the law firm said.
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