The National Commission for Women alleges toxic workplace environment at TCS back office

toxic workplace environment” at a Tata Consultancy Services back office, which it added also failed ‌to comply with ⁠the country’s ⁠anti-sexual harassment law.

TCS, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings published on Monday, has previously said it is cooperating with Indian authorities, who have arrested at least six employees over the sexual harassment allegations.

The case has attracted nationwide attention as it involves India’s top software-services exporter, which has annual revenue of $30 billion and is part of the salt-to-aviation ⁠Tata Group. TCS has ‌in recent weeks launched an internal investigation and suspended staff after police began looking into allegations that some staff at the ⁠company’s back office in Nashik, western India, had sexually harassed women and that some employees were pressured to convert from Hinduism to Islam.

The National Commission for Women, India’s federal body for women’s rights, said on Monday it visited the facility last month and interviewed staff. It said it found “pervasive harassment”, “systemic bullying” and that some staff “used to bully female employees by denigrating Hindu mythology”.

“This was a typical case of sexual harassment ‌at the workplace, involving bullying of female employees, stalking, and demeaning conduct,” the commission said in a statement.

The Nashik unit, with around 150 staff, was primarily engaged in ⁠call centre work for TCS, which operates across 55 countries through its 584,000 employees and whose clients include many large global companies.

The commission also said it found “zero compliance” with India’s law on the prevention of sexual harassment of women in the workplace.

“It is more than clear that this inaction on the part of the organization was not just a compliance deficit but was a governance deficit as well,” it added. (Reporting by Arpan Chaturvedi and Aditya Kalra; Additional reporting by Sai Ishwar; Editing by Alexander Smith)