In a press release issued in the early hours of this morning, Araceli Roiz’s lawyers claim she was pregnant with Murthy’s child
Phaneesh Murthy was allegedly asked to leave iGate because Araceli Roiz, iGate’s head of investor relations, was pregnant with his child, and the Fremont California based IT firm faced the risk of multi-million dollar lawsuit.
In a statement released early this morning by her legal firm Aiman-Smith & Marcy, said, “When Ms Roiz refused to have an abortion, Mr. Murthy attempted to get her to leave the company and keep their relationship a secret. It was not until after Ms Roiz refused to do so and informed him that she would be seeking legal representation and her lawyers contacted Mr. Murthy’s counsel that he reluctantly informed the Board of the relationship, just before the Board would have learned on its own from other sources. On behalf of Ms Roiz, we are contemplating next steps, which will certainly include court action against Mr. Murthy and iGate.”
Earlier in the evening Forbes India had asked Phaneesh Murthy if Ms Roiz was carrying his child. In a brief statement sent through his spokesperson Murthy said, “There are always two sides to the truth and now that the matter is definitely heading to court, I can't comment anymore.”
In an investor call on Tuesday, May 21, iGate said Roiz was on a medical leave.
On May 21 when the news of his resignation became public, Murthy had spoken to us over telephone from his residence in Fremont, California. He said he had informed the Chairman of the Board of his relationship with Ms Roiz “a couple of months back”. When asked why he chose that time to speak to the Chairman, Murthy said, “there were a variety of reasons”. He refused to say anymore than this.
You can read the full text of the lawyers’ statement below. We also spoke to Roiz’s lawyer, Randall Aiman-Smith, after the release was issued. Here are the edited excerpts of the interaction,