US Court Refuses To Reopen Racial Bias Case Against TCS By Its Former Non-Ethnic Indian Employees Based In California
[ By Bobby Anthony ]Indian infotech major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won a significant legal victory after a US district court stated that it would not hold any fresh trial in a case which the company had won in 2018.The Northern District of California district court recently denied a motion by three former non-ethnic Indian TCS employees based in the US who questioned an earlier...
Indian infotech major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won a significant legal victory after a US district court stated that it would not hold any fresh trial in a case which the company had won in 2018.
The Northern District of California district court recently denied a motion by three former non-ethnic Indian TCS employees based in the US who questioned an earlier verdict by a California jury in November 2018.
Last year, the jury had rejected claims made by non-ethnic Indian former TCS employees that the company preferred to hire ethnic Indians to staff its offices in the US and discriminated against non-ethnic Indians.
In its order, the Northern District of California court stated that the California jury’s verdict is unlikely to be affected even if it was an error to allow the testimony by the then deputy head of HR at TCS, Ashok Seetharaman.
The court stated that the verdict was not likely affected because TCS had presented other, similar evidence in support of the verdict.
Incidentally, during the California jury trial, Seetharaman had testified about why 845 of its employees became unallocated (or benched) to projects, giving reasons like customer escalation or performance issues or violation of TCS policies.
During the trial, TCS had presented proof that the non-south Asians in question were fired because they had refused to relocate or were challenging to work with, among other reasons. The company later said that decisions on hiring and retention of employees were made “irrespective of their background or national origin…”
Earlier, TCS had tried to get the case dismissed, but a federal judge denied the company’s request, leading to a court trial in 2018.
The trial had brought into focus how work visas granted to infotech companies were used to bring overseas employees to the US.
Recently, the abuse of this practice by Indian infotech companies was criticized by US President Donald Trump and led to policies which have made it significantly harder for overseas workers to be brought into the US by securing H-1B visas.