IT and construction giants' code for bribe: Architectural enrichment

CHENNAI: According to the DVAC, the investigations by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed that Cognizant’s top executives directly participated in a criminal bribery scheme to obtain essential permits for critical SEZ facilities and that these executives falsified Cognizant’s SEC filings and sustainability reports to facilitate that scheme.

In its FIR, the agency named R Srimanikandan, former vice president (administration) & real estate officer, Cognizant India; T Sridhar Thiruvengadam, former chief operating officer, Cognizant India; V Ramesh, former construction division head, L&T, Chennai; Kannan, former business unit head of L&T, Chennai; MV Sathish, former executive vice president and head, building and factories, L&T Chennai, and current member of the board & senior executive vice-president, L&T; SN Subramanian, former construction head, L&T, Chennai and current head of L&T, India; along with unnamed CMDA officials.

On March 7, 2014, Cognizant’s real estate officer Srimanikandan informed CTS president Gordon J Coburn that Ramesh, L&T’s construction head informed him that Rs 12 crore was required to meet the demand of bribe by the CMDA officials to expedite the approval of planning permit.

The scrutiny of e-mail communications between L&T and CTS showed the active connivance of Kannan, Sathish, and Subramanian in the demand and engagement of third party liaison consultant to handover the bribe amount to the CMDA or Housing and Urban Development Department officials to get the planning permit.

On Jan 13, 2015, Srimanikandan sent an e-mail to Coburn, enclosing an abstract for the payment to be made along with the detailed variation claims in an Excel sheet. The mail contains a break-up for Rs 48.80 crore - Rs 26.20 crore for the actual works executed and Rs 22.60 crore mentioned as statutory approvals.

The final approved amount is Rs.47.3 crore. Later, Rs 12 crore was added by the CTS in the name of “architectural enrichment”. The amount finally arrived at Rs 59.38 crore, including Rs 47.3 crore for changes executed at the site and Rs 12 crore for ‘architectural enrichment’.

CTS was found to have paid Rs 59.38 crore to L&T to reimburse the bribe amount of Rs 12 crore, the amount already paid by L&T to the CMDA and government department officials, said the DVAC.