HCL IN 'TROUBLE' FACES LAWSUIT OVER SACKING OF INDIAN EMPLOYEE - DETAILED REPORT!  

In a shocking case, a former employee of a top IT company- HCL in US has filed a lawsuit against the firm for unlawful termination based on his caste by his superior.  

This case comes a month after Cisco Systems Inc was accused of discriminating against an Indian-American employee. This company had also allowed him to be harassed by two managers because of his caste.

As per a Money Control report, the case was filed on March 25 in a superior court in California. It is similar to the case against Cisco that triggered debates around caste bias in Silicon Valley organisations. The lawsuit filed by the employee against HCL America alleges that his superior Srinivas Chakravarty, a Kamma Naidu by caste, harboured animosity against him as he is a Kapu Naidu.

As per the lawsuit, the two caste groups have a history of animosity that dates back to the riots in 1980s in the Vijayawada region of Andhra Pradesh. The former employee said he had come to know that Chakravarty was terminated soon after the lawsuit was filed, but could not independently verify the same. 

“Substantial motivating factors for … termination of employment were, without limitation, his ethnicity (including as it relates to caste), race, national origin, ancestry, religious creed and/or color, and/or any such perceived characteristics, and/or his association with members of such protected classes, as well as his complaints about discrimination within the company,” the lawsuit read.

Amid the chaos and fight, HCL Technologies, which is the parent company of HCL America, did not respond to queries about Chakravarty’s termination nor on the action taken on two senior managers, who have been identified as Vikas Soni and Prasanna Subramanian to whom Vikram complained, Money Control further reported. 

When the leading publication contacted the company, they did not respond to queries on the allegations raised in the lawsuit or even on the steps taken by the company to address unfair treatment to former employee Vikram based on his ethnicity.

Meanwhile in July, renowned California regulators sued Cisco Systems Inc, accusing it of discriminating against an Indian-American employee. They had even allowed him to be harassed by two managers because he was from a lower Indian caste than them.

When the company was questioned about it- Cisco said it did not have an immediate comment, but it planned to issue a statement on it later.