KOCHI: Even as murkier details emerge regarding Swapna Suresh’s appointment to the Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Limited (KSITIL) as the operations manager, none of the companies involved in her selection process are able to explain how a candidate with a fake degree certificate and dubious records secured a job in a Kerala government project.
According to insiders in the KSITIL, it was a well-orchestrated operation by a racket that enabled Swapna’s appointment in the project. While the KSITIL passed the buck to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) claiming it was the multinational firm that deputed Swapna for the Space Park Project, the PwC too has refused to take the blame. The firm instead washed its hands of Swapna’s appointment by putting the onus on Vision Technology and Staffing Solutions Pvt Ltd, one of its Gurgaon-based vendors.
Now, Vision Technology has pointed fingers at another Gurgaon-based firm called Knowy HR Solutions Pvt Ltd, with the claim that though they were the ones who selected Swapna, it was Knowy that conducted a detailed background verification on the candidate. When asked how the company got in touch with her, Vision Technology managing director Daleep Kaul told TNIE that they sourced candidates from the open market. “We processed her application and forwarded it to the PwC. Her background verification was conducted by another firm and we just went by the report submitted by them,” he said.
In an email query to Knowy HR Solutions seeking clarity on how the company verified her degree certificate with the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Vijaypal Singh of Knowy HR Solutions replied, “We are a very small company based in Gurgaon. We don’t have any written or verbal job contract with the PwC and never forwarded any such report to the firm. As far as the education verification is concerned, we follow all the norms set by the industry or client under the scope of the work. Our reports are for internal reference purposes only.”