TCS sacked 16 staffers after a bribes-for-jobs scheme ran through its staffing unit

In 2023, India's largest IT services firm disclosed that employees in its Resource Management Group — the unit that places contract workers on projects — had accepted bribes from six business associates or staffing firms, compromising the recruitment process for contract workers. Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran said at most 2-3% of TCS's human resources came through such contractors.

The scale of the unit explains the temptation: the 3,000-strong RMG places about 1,400 engineers, including new recruits, on projects daily — averaging a placement per minute — drawing on more than 1,000 vendor firms across 55 countries. Internal sources cited by Mint placed the money involved at about ₹100 crore over the last three years, against TCS's $27.93 billion revenue for 2022-23.

The conflict of interest was intimate: a senior executive who was not a key managerial person was found to have awarded staffing contracts to firms run by his relatives, and the six vendors were among TCS's largest contract-staffing firms in south India. TCS sacked 16 of the 19 employees found guilty, barred the six vendors, their owners and affiliates from any business with it, and announced further measures to 'enhance governance'.

The unit's own throughput — a placement per minute across 55 countries — made individual vendor decisions effectively unauditable in real time.

A senior executive steering contracts to firms run by his relatives went unnoticed or unreported among the vendor's top-performing peers.

Only 0.002–0.003% of employees were involved, but the scheme still put a 55-year reputation on the line — the firm's controls scaled with its headcount, not with its exposure.

The famous Tata Code of Conduct did not fail on paper; it failed at the point where a gatekeeper's discretion met a vendor's cash.

A gatekeeper making a placement a minute is a bribery machine waiting to be switched on: vendor-ownership disclosure and audits of the gate must be as industrial as the gate.

TCS barred the six vendors, their owners and affiliates from any business with the company and said it was enhancing governance. The amounts and sackings were reported by Mint; no regulatory action was recorded in the coverage.