After all the damage has been done to India’s IT bellwether Infosys , much of which has been blamed squarely on its iconic co-founder NR Narayana Murthy , some voices are asking if there is something more to it than what meets the eye?Would someone like Murthy keep on fighting a battle, putting his own reputation and personal wealth at stake just for ego?Why would a co-founder keep digging dirt to ruin an enterprise he built with his sweat and blood, if something is not seriously wrong, ask corporate veterans.Murthy says his battle is with the board, and never did he question the performance of Vishal Sikka , who resigned as CEO and Managing Director last Friday.At the core of Murthy’s differences with the board were three issues: a major compensation hike to a CFO that he believes was way too disproportionate with the pay hike given to the average employee; terms and rewards of a severance package given to a general counsel and disclosures regarding the acquisition of Israeli SaaS (software as a service) company Panaya , which he says were inadequate.Corporate veterans say obscene CXO-level compensation is an issue not specific to Infosys, but across the corporate world. Even issues around severance packages are often too tricky to comment on from outside and are better left to the discretion of the management and the board.But the question mark over the Panaya deal looks real and the Infosys board has indeed failed to maintain the transparency standards that the IT major has been known for, they say.“Murthy has been stressing on transparency on the Panaya deal for long. The management might be hiding something, which is irritating Murthy. These are past promoters and hold minority stakes and things should have been clarified to them across the table. They are like insiders,” said a business analyst, who did not want to be named.Former Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan says Murthy was not the only one unhappy about the goings-on in Infosys; only that he was the most vocal one.Answers are not forthcoming on a whole gamut of issues from the severance pay given to a former CFO and a former legal counsel to the Panaya issue, said Bala.“Shareholders have the right to know when you spend Rs 10 crore of their money in doing an investigation. They have a right to know what the investigators have looked at, what is the conclusion and what is the process they have gone through,” he said.Bala claimed a lot of shareholders had reached out to Murthy and wanted corrective action. “Probably, they would have met the board to express the same concern,” he said.He demanded that the Chairman and co-Chairman of the board should first resign and the board be reconstituted before a new CEO is brought in.In his letters, Murthy has repeatedly hinted at the possibility that some employee or his/her kith and kin may have benefitted in the Panaya acquisition. He even hints that the said benefit could have been on an investment in a VC firm, which might have had investment in Panaya.Murthy’s pinpointed questions show he knows some bit more. It is possible that he wants those details be made public to ensure that the bad apples get eased out of the system without the business getting hurt.The Infosys board got all these allegations probed by an independent panel, which gave it a clean chit. But Murthy has been demanding more details of the probe and insists that investors have the right to know the ultimate beneficial ownership details of the fund that owned Panaya.“Shareholders have the right to know what the investigators have looked at, what is the conclusion and what is the process they have gone through,” says Bala.If the board is above board, why has it not dispelled those rumours by disclosing the details?“When you have a serious allegation like this, the board should come out clean. It should explain much more than what is required. Here, you have a board which does not want to explain, which does not want to give all the information to shareholders and always say they are clean. Who is going to believe that, unless you put out the full report?” asks Bala.Infosys has a name for strong corporate governance standards and transparency, which is possibly why regulators at home and abroad, especially in the US, have not turned their lenses at it despite these murmurs all this while. Post Friday’s developments, at least three US law firms have reportedly launched probe against the company. Sebi has also reportedly asked the stock exchanges about the disclosures from the company relating to the recent events.Others say Sikka may have transformed the company to a great extent, but it was not really firing on all cylinders under him.“While the company did better than the industry during Sikka’s tenure, it was nowhere near achieving Sikka’s own $20 billion target by 2020. Sikka’s allegation that he was continuously being distracted does not wash as he had long enough a honeymoon period to make his mark,” says VK Sharma, Head of PCG Research at HDFC Securities.Another former Infosys CFO, T V Mohandas Pai felt Sikka might be just trying to cover up his “bad performance.““Yes, true. He (Sikka) wanted to leave from February by his own admission. He is covering up his own failure to reach the target by blaming Narayana Murthy,” Pai said.He said Sikka's appointment as executive vice-chairman is a governance issue and it has created a confusing lineup, with the company already boasting of a chairman (R Seshasayee ) and a co-chairman ( Ravi Venkatesan ).Sikka, a former senior executive at German multinational software company SAP, resigned on Friday, citing continuous distractions and disruptions over recent months as key impediments in his efforts to transform the 36-year-old company.Sikka’s exit drew a long-drawn-out boardroom battle to a close.