BANGALORE:

's ousted CEO Phaneesh Murthy will face court action for sexually harassing the company's investor relations head

, Roiz's law firm said in a press release issued late on Wednesday night.

The California-based law firm, Aiman-Smith & Marcy, said that Roiz was pregnant with Murthy's child. It said that when Murthy discovered this, he pressured Roiz to have an abortion. "When she refused, he told her to leave the company, quietly, to protect his position as CEO," the law firm said.The release said that in his role as Roiz's supervisor, Murthy had insinuated himself into Roiz's personal life using the pretext of business necessity. "In this way, Mr Murthy was able to induce Ms Roiz into behaviour and action that she would have found unthinkable at the beginning of her employment," it said. The law firm said Murthy began pursuing Roiz shortly after her employment began in 2010, and not, as Murthy had said in this press conference on Tuesday, that it began only a few months ago.The firm said that the only reason Murthy was able to engage in "these abusive and harassing actions" was because he was Roiz's employer. "The CEO of any company, as Mr Murthy was here, has tremendous economic and personal power over his subordinates. Thus, Ms Roiz was dependent on her continued employment for her basic living expenses and, further, Mr Murthy conditioned her further employment and career advancement opportunities on her entering into a relationship with him which, eventually and reluctantly, she did. When she tried to extricate herself from the relationship, he reduced her responsibilities, threatened her continued employment, and pressured her to continue the relationship," the release said.The law firm said that it would be taking court action against iGate too. "Under California law, because Mr Murthy was an officer and director of iGate, his actions were the actions of iGate, and iGate, too, is liable for the acts of Mr Murthy. There remains the question of whether, given Mr Murthy's history of predatory actions toward female employees, iGate did all that it should have done to oversee and control Mr Murthy and to provide some method for women at iGate to report his actions," it said.The law firm took serious objection to Murthy's comments that Roiz was engaging in "extortion" by bringing this case against him. "Murthy's comments are defamatory and a despicable attempt to `blame the victim', who only wants to somehow continue her career and support her child."The attorneys in the firm previously represented Reka Maximovitch and Jennifer Griffith in sex harassment lawsuits against Murthy for his actions while employed at Infosys. "Ms Roiz selected the law firm, Aiman-Smith & Marcy, based upon the firm's excellent reputation as vigorous advocates for victims of employment discrimination and its prior success in getting compensation for some of Mr. Murthy's previous victims," the law firm said.The firm said that had Murthy not convened a very public press conference "in which he attempted to make himself look better by lying and slandering Roiz, she would not have endured the embarrassment and humiliation of making these facts public; however, she has been forced to do so to counter Murthy's very public, false statements."