IN THE COURT OF THE _______

AT _______________, _______________ DISTRICT

PRIVATE COMPLAINT No. _________of 2018

(Complaint made under the authority of Section 200 read with Section 190 of the
Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 – offence of criminal defamation in terms of
Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 read with Section 34 thereof and made
punishable under Sections 500, 501 and 502 thereof)
BETWEEN:
Sachin Malhotra Complaint
S/o Sh. S K Malhotra
4449, Sec B, Pkt 5&6
Vasant Kunj, New Delhi
AND
1. Avantha Holdings Limited Accused No. 1
Through its Chairman Gautam Thapar
Operating office: 1st Floor, Plot No. 47
Udyog Vihar Phase IV,
Gurugram, Haryana 122015

Also at:
Registered office: Thapar House,
124 Janpath,
New Delhi 110001
2. Mr. Gautam Thapar Accused No. 2
Founder & Chairman, Avantha Holdings Limited
3. Mr. Suresh K Khandelwal Accused No. 3
CEO, Avantha Holdings Limited
4. Mr. Sanjay Sharad Sen Accused No. 4
Director, Human Resources, Avantha Holdings Limited
5. Mr. Paul-Bernard Poupon Accused No. 5
Chairman’s Office, Avantha Holdings Limited
6. Mr. Manu Bhandari Accused No. 6
CEO, Avantha Solutions, Inc.
2708 Alternate 19N, Suite 604-5
Palm Harbor, FL 34683
7. M/s. Avantha Solutions, Inc. Accused No. 7
Through Mr. Manu Bhandari, CEO
2708 Alternate 19N, Suite 604-5
Palm Harbor, FL 34683
8. Mr. Aryaman Sengar Accused No. 8
AVP Finance
Avantha Holdings Ltd.

THE COMPLAINANT, SACHIN MALHOTRA, MOST RESPECTFULLY SUBMITS

THAT:
1. The Complainant herein i.e. Mr. Sachin Malhotra, is a peaceful, law abiding
citizen of the country, having deep roots in the society. He served Avantha
Holdings Limited (AHL) as AVP for 11 years 7 months and received an “Exceeds
Expectation” rating for almost all appraisals and earned periodic promotion and
increments in recognition of his loyalty and excellent performace towards the
organisation.
2. Prior to joining AHL, the Complainant served Genpact, a company of great
repute where he was also awarded several awards and received promotions and
increments.

3. The present complaint relates to certain developments that took place in 2017.
After the last appraisal cycle, the Complainant was given additional
responsibilities to oversee the HR, IT, information security functions of the
company in addition to overseeing the Analytics line of business by ____title and
name of person who signed appraisal letter_______. In course of carrying out his
responsibilities, he unearthed several discrepancies and illegal and unethical
activities, which the Complainant documented and was addressing systematically
to put the affairs of the various departments right. The various instances are
listed below along with Annexures supporting the same. However, documents
relating to certain instances which were documented could not be made available
as the subsequent events narrate.

4. In all the above illegal and unethical activities, one Mr. Manu Bhandari, who was
senior of the Complainant continuously obstructed or ignored the Complainant in
carrying out his duties.
5. When the Complainant realised that Mr. Bhandari was purposely trying to hide
these activites as they were a direct reflection on Mr. Bhandari's performance
and dysfunction, the Complainant became very concerned. It was obvious that
Mr. Bhandari was trying to take revenge against the Complainant for carrying out
his job by the following tactics:____ spoiling appraisal, spoiling vacation etc.

6. The management tortured and intimidated the Complainant with dire

consequences forcing him to resign. However, since the Complainant
documented the torturous and intimidating tactics of the management, the
Complainant was hastely shunted out of the organisation in a unilateral move
aimed to destroy his career without any warning which has in fact resulted in
destruction of his career and permanent damage to his reputation in front of
potential employers, colleagues and friends. Due to the mala fide actions of the
management, the Complainant is permanently deprived of his right to livelihood
as no other company is willing to hire him after the way he was terminated from
the organisation where he had given prime years of his life.

7. Avantha Holdings Limited/AHL (Accused No. 1) was previously known as Thapar

Group and is one of India's biggest business conglomerates whose Group
companies include CG Power and Industrial Solutions Limited, Ballarpur
Industries Limited as well as other businesses of food processing, farm forestry,
chemicals, energy, infrastructure, information technology (IT) and IT-enabled
services.

8. The Complainant had previously worked with Fortune 50 company called

GE/Genpact before joining Avantha Group and had excelled in bringing huge
amount of business to India over the past 11 years over more than 25 trips to the
USA for client meetings and conferences. In April 2017, the Complainant was
given an increment of approximately 30% on the fixed component of his salary
and informed that he will be eligible for 2% commission/incentive of over and
above Line of Business (LOB) wise Annual Operating Plan (AOP) revenue. In
addition to that, the Complainant was asked to fill the role for the position of HR
Head and IT Head as both the vacancies were open from a long time after the
exit of the respective Department Heads namely VIjayshree Kalon and Kuljit
Hooda. Hence, the Complainant was asked to take over the functions in addition
to his core competency of business development. In addition to that the
Complainant was filling up the role of Chief Information Security Officer as well
whenever ISO audit was conducted in the facility and overseeing all the
Information security standards in the facility. It is noteworthy that from a pure
 Business Development role for the Business Analytics division, the Complainant
was given all these additional roles for the benefit of the organisation and to save
money.

9. However, over the course of next few months, due to the additional
responsibilities and ability to access the documents in HR, IT and Information
Security function, the Complainant came to know about unethical, illegal
activities, lapses, discrepancies and forgeries, being conducted in the
organisation in violation of the Indian laws and laws of United States of America.

10. As the Complainant was responsible for multiple functions, he started addressing
the various issues one by one. However, problems started arising when he tried
to address the various violations related to US laws and Indian laws as these
violations were a direct result of actions taken by Mr. Manu Bhandari (Accused
No. 6), CEO of a USA based company called Avantha Solutions, Inc. who was
superior in hierarchy to the Complainant. Further, instead of addressing the
issues in the right way, Accused no. 6 started behaving in a very erratic and
vindictive manner.

11. Accused No. 6 first tried to spoil the performance appraisal of the Complainant
on baseless grounds on 8.11.2017 by giving a rating of ‘Needs Improvement’.
However, since all the performance metrics showed a different picture that the
Complainant had excelled at his job responsibilities just like all the previous
years, Accused No. 6 was not able to take revenge on the Complainant. The
Complainant further forwarded all the supporting documents and information to
Accused No. 6 regarding his performance being very good and above
expectations. Further, Accused No. 6 never responded to the documents and
information shared by the Complainant and thereafter also never raised any
performance issue with the Complainant.

12. On 28.11.2017, a watsapp group was created by Accused No. 6 for Monthly
Management Review which included the Complainant and Mr. Paul-Bernard
Poupon in the Chairman's office (Accused No. 5). Throughout the discussions
which ensued on a weekly basis, there was no information that anything was
lacking from the Complainant side or that there was any restructuring in the
works. In fact, on 24.1.2018, very crucial inputs were noted down by Accused
No. 5 who is higher in hierarchy than Accused No. 6 that the Complainant had
again highlighted the flaws in the business plan proposed by Accused no. 6.

The response of Accused No. 5 reproduced below, who was higher in hierarchy
to Accused No. 6 spooked the Accused No. 6 that the Complainant was probably
showing the true colours of Accused No. 6 to all concerned.
“Sorry what happened to the golden xxx that Sachin was speaking on.
And before we build a presentation CCAP do we fully understand the
problem at hand and are we planning to provide a long term solution?
Is the bar coding possible? Is it feasible? Can we provide to the
client something that is cost efficient and will bring in a certain
amount of stickiness. The old system was great, but as you said it
was halted. How can we ensure it doesn’t get halted? What product
and service can we build them that ensures that they are dependable
on US and not the other way around. Big task, but the utilimate
question at hand.

For blockchain solution, please do the needful, but what is being

proposed needs to be cross analyses with what other players are
doing. From what I read there are already 5/6 players in this field.
Please ensure to do a full analysis on them vis a vis what we are
doing.

Thanks
13. On 13.2.2018, during a 7 hour long meeting between Accused No. 6 and Mr.
Sanjay Sharad Sen (Accused No. 4), Head Human Resources for AHL, a
management review of the HR policy of the Company was conducted wherein
optimum use of the Complainant’s experience and expertise was made by the
management so that before the conspiracy to destroy his career was executed,
all possible benefit could be extracted from the Complainant. Amongst other
things, several changes to the Policy proposed by the Complainant were
discussed. The same were already documented in an email sent by Ms. Kanika
Dhody for review of all prior to the meeting. It was clear in that meeting also that
the Complainant was not willing to stay silenced on the various unethical and
illegal activities. However, the Complainant being a thorough professional was
not indulging in any blame games. The Complainant only set about fixing the
wrongs in the various departments in the organisation.

14. However, the Accused No. 6 having realised that the Complainant was aware of
the true picture and character of Accused No. 6, called the complainant for a
meeting on the very next day 14.2.2018 and threatened and intimidated the
complainant with very dire consequences. Accused No. 6 asked the Complainant
to leave the job in two days. The Complainant knowing that this was a vengeful
act to silence him, only made a simple request for a graceful exit from the
organisation in front of the 250+ employees with whom he had worked for over
10 years. The Complainant further requested Accused No. 6 that he can find an
alternative job but he should not be asked to leave all of a sudden as a sudden
exit after many years will permanently damage his career prospects.

15. However, Accused no. 6 having decided to silence the Complainant very quickly
and in order to ensure that the Complainant had no time to collect emails which
have evidentiary value to show the illegal and unethical activities reiterated that
he will only give 'two days'. He also told the Complainant that he can always go
to the Courts for justice where he will get it in 10 years even though Complainant
had not resorted to any threats and was only trying to safeguard his career
prospects.

16. The Complainant in a state of shock and worry, considering the gravity of the
matter which involved the livelihood, and more importantly the irreparable
damage to his entire career, the irreversible jeopardy if he was terminated at
such a short notice, preferred to meet Mr. Sanjay Sharad Sen (Accused No. 4),
Head Human Resources for AHL but Mr. Sen did not pay any heed to the
Complainant’s concerns that this was a retaliatory measure by Accused no. 6.

17. Accused no. 4 also meted out a very high handed treatment to the Complainant
and did not care that a person’s whole future is in jeopardy because of the
unusual haste with which Accused No. 6 is forcing him to leave the organisation,
notwithstanding that the employee has given prime time of his life to the
organisation and only two days ago was in a 7 hour meeting discussing the
processes and procedures for a smooth HR function of the organisation. The
treatment of the Complainant was in blatant violation of the HR policy as well as
the standard procedures of the company and the Complainant was not sure why
he was being shunted out like this for no fault on his part.

18. The complainant sent an email to Mr. Gautam Thapar, Chairman and Founder of
AHL (Accused No. 2), and Mr. Paul-Bernard Poupon in the Chairman's office
(Accused No. 5), regarding the vengeful act of the Accused No. 6 and the illegal
and unethical activities being carried out by him on behalf of the management,
but received no response. It is noteworthy that Accused No. 2 and Accused No. 5
are at the helm of the management of the company where the Complainant was
 employed and as the Complainant was appointed by them, Accused No. 6 who is
not even resident in India nor employed in India had no right whatsoever to take
away the livelihood of the employee of Indian company. However, both Accused
No. 2 and Accused No. 5 who were involved in the running of the company and
were well aware that the Complainant had no performance issues did not bother
to address the concerns raised by the Complainant in blatant violation of the
Code of Conduct of the company.

19. Accused No. 6 continued to intimidate and harass the Complainant during
meetings on 16.2.2018 and 19.2.2018 further threatening him to leave the
organisation quickly or face consequences. The Complainant asked for some
time so he can find a new job and depart from the organisation gracefully.
Accused No. 6 emailed the Complainant on 21.2.2018 informing him that he
must get his US phone on the next day and as he would like to ‘get it done by
tomorrow’ because he had to fly back to USA.

20. The Complainant gave into the pressure and threats of Accused No. 6 and
resigned on 22.2.2018 informing that he was willing to serve the notice period as
per contract and hand over the responsibilities with full cooperation. The email
was marked to Accused No. 2,4,5 and 6. , as follows:

Dear All,

Given the choice to either resign or be discharged, I hereby submit

my resignation from my position as Associate Vice President at Avantha Holding,
under protest.

Because I don't understand why I have been forced to resign, have I been cherry
picked for this purpose, I feel angry and betrayed. In the 12 years that I have worked
with this organization,

 Majority of those years I have been rated ‘Exceeds Expectation’ which is

also my most recent rating.

 Billed over $10mn in all this time

 As the first employee for my division even before we had any clients, and
at its peak was managing 150+ employees

 I have been instrumental in bringing/developing the following client

relationships all of which have been profitable:

LSI, Direct Mortgage, United Lenders Services, United Northern, Franklin First
Financial, Nations Lending, Bioscrip and Byram

In the past two years, business development has been led by Manu Bhandari in the
US and I have been managing financial services operations in India as well as the IT
and HR functions.

It is noteworthy, that I have not asked to be shunned out from the business
development efforts; however, my advice as a seasoned US mortgage industry
veteran was consistently ignored. Also noteworthy is the fact that the
aforementioned list of clients includes both the healthcare and financial services
sector. Yet I am being penalized for every failed BD effort of past two years,
notwithstanding all the earlier successes and the versatility with which I have
assumed different roles to suit this organization.

In my view, this is wrongful termination.

I envisioned a long, fruitful career here at Avantha and I am deeply distressed that
this is not going to be the case. In view of the foregoing, I resign under protest,
however, reserve the right to take any other actions and pursue any other legal
rights available to me.
 I will be serving my notice period as per the terms and will fully cooperate in handing
over my responsibilities.

21. Accused No. 6 sent a response to the email, without marking a copy of the email
to any of the seniors marked by the Complainant and refused to accept the
resignation of the Complainant as under:

Hi Sachin,
This has reference to your trailing e-mail dated 22nd Feb.2018 submitting
your resignation from the services under protest. In the said email ,unwarranted
allegations have also been leveled against us which we deny strongly having no basis.
We also clarify that primary reason, as also discussed with you, of our asking you from
discontinuation of services was not performance driven but our internal restructuring of
our operations.
Accordingly, we do not accept your under protest resignation. However, we reserve our
rights to take necessary action in the matter.
This is also without prejudice to our rights and action.

22. However, within a few hours of rejecting the Complainant’s resignation, as soon
as the Complainant left the office premises, Accused No. 6 sent a termination
letter to the Complainant on his official email and his personal email stating that
his services were terminated with immediate effect. It is noteworthy that in the
email rejecting the resignation Accused No. 6 stated that there was no
performance issue on the part of the Complainant, yet on the other hand, he was
hastily shunted out of the organisation in a unilateral move aimed to destroy his
career by Accused No. 6 without even keeping in loop the HR or any other senior
management employee.

23. It is clear that the Accused No. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 were responsible for the affairs
and management of the company and they conspired to defame the Complainant
by rejecting his resignation and terminating him with immediate effect after 11
years of service for no reason whatsoever. They never investigated into any of
the concerns raised by the Complainant in the email tendering resignation. Even
though, they were marked on the resignation and all previous emails, they
allowed Accused No. 6 freehand to wrongfully terminate the services of the
Complainant in such a manner to destroy the career of the Complainant. By their
wholly mala fide actions, the accused have wholly derogated from the principles
of natural justice and the accused have further channeled their attention and
energy to severely injure the reputation of the Complainant.

24. The Complainant respectfully submits that the excuse of restructuring given at
the last minute was wholly fabricated as the accused certainly lacked any
material basis to so assert. The accused have never raised this topic with the
Complainant or in any of the numerous strategy discussions, monthly reviews, or
yearly appraisal.

25. No due process of the organisation was followed. There was no opportunity of
farewell, just an abrupt cut off for the Complainant after 11 years and 7 months in
the same organisation leading to disgrace and reputational harm for the
Complainant.

26. Even before the termination letter was issued, the management started sending
out emails to the employees, stripping the Complainant of his job responsibilities
thereby starting gossip and blemishing and tarnishing the image of the
Complainant in front of the 250+ employees of the organisation including his
many long standing friends and colleagues thereby damaging the social
 reputation of the Complainant. One such email (reproduced below) was marked
to the Complainant was very painful and traumatising for him.

From: Manu Bhandari

Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 3:29 PM
To: Rohit Kumar; Team IT
Cc: Samrat Roy; Rupesh Marwaha; Aryaman Sengar
Subject: Change in Reporting

Hi Rohit,

Effective immediately, all IT team will report to Rupesh Marwaha till further notice.

Regards

27. It is noteworthy that the Complainant was appointed by the Director and CEO of
the company and only the authority equivalent or higher than appointing authority
can terminate the employment. It is a violation of principlesof natural justice to
allow anyone to terminate the employment.

28. Prior to the termination letter received by the Complainant, no other permanent
employee was ever issued a termination letter except one person. In that
person’s case, the clear case of misconduct was established and then also the
company gave repeated warnings and reminders to the employee over four
months before terminating his services even though he was not even confirmed
employee. This clearly shows that the Complainant has been singly cherry
picked for the defamatory treatment.

29. As soon as the Complainant left the office premises, a termination letter was sent
on his official email, his personal email followed by termination letter on
27.2.2018 by registered post and a bank transfer on 15.3.2018 in his salary
account. The conspiracy from the start was to defame him and give the
Complainant absolutelyno time to look for new job or arrange his financial affairs
before the exit to ensure maximum damage for the Complainant.
30. No due process of the organisation was followed. There was no farewell, just an
abrupt cut off for the Complainamt who had given prime time of his life to the
company to ensure maximum mental agony and torture for the Complainant after
the abrupt shattering of his life ensuring that all employees and client contacts
were made aware that the Complainant had been disgraced as no one except
the Accused were aware of the true circumstances behind his leaving or that he
had tendered resignation which was rejected.
31. Even for full and final settlement, usually the practice of the company was to first
send a preliminary settlement to the exited employee and ensure that there are
no queries or clarifications that the employee brings to notice and then finalise
the settlement. This process was not followed as well.

32. That, on 18.3.2018, the Complainant received another letter giving details of full
and final (F&F) settlement but no experience letter which would have been a
crucial document for him in getting future employment. The management clearly
violated its own processes and practices as the industry practice was that the
experience letter was sent along with F&F settlement letter. The intention being
clear to deprive the Complainant of the opportunity to find another job as the
absence of experience letter is always considered a red flag by potential
employers. However, after firing the Complainant, the Accused have remitted the
‘basic salary’ during notice period in lieu to the notice of termination of his
services which is also incorrect as it is ‘one month salary’ which is to be remitted
in lieu of notice period. However this also does not minimize the permanent
damage to the Complainamt's reputation and the mental agony he has faced
because of the Accused's irrational decision. Further, Accused have made illegal
 and baseless deduction from F&F calculation and made the unilateral transfer of
the said amount in Complainant's account.
33.
34. The reason of restructuring given in the email rejecting Complainant's resignation
is a sham and falsity and a last ditch attempt to hide the criminal conspiracy to
defame the Complainant, as why would restructuring require immediate dismissal
of very high performing employee and specially select out of the 250 employees
in the organisation when neither a method of ‘last in first out’ was being followed
nor did any policy of seniority or yardstick of compensation paid was used in
order to identify the employees who should be terminated first in order to carry
out the restructuring. On 13.2.2018, there was a 7.5 hours long meeting between
te Complainant, Mr. Sen and Mr. Bhandari to review the HR policy of the
organisation, yet Complainant was not given any idea of what was being planned
the very next day.

35. The Accused No. 6 who has issued and signed the termination letter is neither an
employee nor an incumbent of AHL and under which capacity he can issue such
termination letter.

36. The Accused Company has made fresh appointments for replacing the
Complainant’s job responsibilities for HR and IT division, within one day and four
days respectively, of termination which clearly shows there was no restructuring.
Even replacing all the roles the Complainant was performing in the organisation
would have cost the organisation two to three times more than his salary. There
was never any communication or information to the Complainant that there was
deficiency or performance issues in his services.

37. It is neither a practice nor convention in the industry, to terminate services of

senior employees at such short notice. The reasons of this mala fide action by
the Accused and the desperation and hurry with which it has been carried out, is
for taking revenge and punishing the Complainant for his dedication towards the
Company and taking him out of the picture so he is not able to highlight the illegal
and unethical activities being carried out in the organisation by accused no. 6
and his coterie. That even if the company opts for some person for employment
which the management considers would be beneficial in the interest of the
organization, in that event the management is under obligation to compensate
the employee who is being shunted out for no fault of his own. However ethics of
profession demands that devoted employees should be handed over some good
package & in certain cases the scheme of golden handshake is adopted so that
the employee do not go into depression, but in the instant matter the
Complainant has been slapped brutally for his completely un-blemished services
of 11 years 7 months, whereas he should have been rewarded for their devoted
services for which they were given promotions and never ever a warning.

38. The Complainant lost a very good job opportunity in another organisation, due to
lack of explanation for sudden termination of his services at such short notice,
which he could have got easily if allowed only a month’s time as per notice period
requirements in his employment contract. That the Complainant has gone into
deep depression because of the unwarranted behaviour towards him as the
general public perception in such matters reflects & tends to believe moral
turpitude behind termination of services and is further suffering undue financial
hardship due to the act of conspiracy by the Accused to defame him
permanently.

39. The complainant’s fundamental right to livelihood is in jeopardy as his future

career prospects are demolished and he is the primary bread earner in his family
with his elderly parents and infant son who depend on him for their needs.
 40. The Complainant has given prime time of his life to the Accused Company and
the vindictive decision of the Management to pick choose and fire any person of
choice has no place in law.

41. That since you, the addressees, have taken the decision to terminate the
services of my client, I, Dinesh Sharma, Advocate put you to notice to re-instate
the services of my client with immediate effect with full benefits, which they would
have been entitled to, had they not been terminated, else, my client will have no
other option but to go for legal remedy which includes criminal as well as civil
defamation against all of you for destroying public reputation of my client.
42.
43. Mr. Gautam Thapar is the Chairman and Founder of Avantha Holdings Limited
and Manu Bhandari called my client for a 2 minute meeting on 14.02.2018 and
threatened my client to leave the job in 2 days or face dire consequences. My
Client requested Mr. Bhandari for a graceful exit from the organisation in front of
the 250+ employees with whom he had worked for over a decade and requested
time to find an alternative job, as a sudden exit after many years will permanently
damage his career prospects. However, Mr. Bhandari repeated 'two days' and
informed my Client that he can always go to the Courts for justice where he will
get it in 10 years.
44.

45. The Complainant is herein represented by a legal practitioner and service of

notice or other information upon him may be

Actual harm upon the Complainant: The Complainant respectfully submits, as already documented in
the preceding pages, that his reputation has been gravely injured and harmed by the collective acts of
the accused and that every manner of grievance raised in this complaint against the acts of the accused
may be read as including a further grievance that those acts were calculated to injure and harm the
reputation of the Complainant and that the same have indeed caused, actual injury and harm to the
reputation of the Complainant.

PRAYER

Wherefore, in view of the circumstances most distressingly narrated above, the Complainant most
humbly begs that this Hon‟ble Court be graciously pleased to:

a) summon the accused to answer a charge of having collectively intended the commission of criminal
defamation of the Complainant in terms of Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 read with Section
34 thereof and to;

b) summon the accused to answer a charge of collectively knowing or having reasons to believe that
their collective acts and imputations would harm the reputation of the Complainant and of causing
actual harm to the reputation of the Complainant in terms of Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860
read with Section 34 thereof and to;

c) adjudge the accused as guilty, whether by consent or upon trial, and to subject them, individually, to
the due and full punishment - in terms of Section 502 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 in relation to
accused Nos.1 and 2, in terms of Section 501 thereof in relation to accused No.3 and in terms of Section
500 thereof in relation to accused Nos.4 to 22;
d) to pass any other order or direction as may be desired or deemed expedient by this Hon‟ble Court in
the interest of justice and expediency.