BENGALURU: In a setback to Infosys , the company has been ordered to pay the Rs 12.17 crore of outstanding severance payment to former chief financial officer (CFO) Rajiv Bansal . The order brings the curtains down on a nearly two-year long dispute and a year-long arbitration process. The severance payment was also the genesis of the conflict between some of the company’s promoters on the one hand, and former CEO Vishal Sikka and the company’s then Board on the other, which eventually led to the resignations of Sikka and several Board members.Bansal will walk away with Rs 17.38 crore in severance pay – perhaps the highest such payment by India Inc. The amount itself is insignificant for a company the size of Infosys. But the company’s reputation has been brought into question. Infosys had levelled serious charges of breach of confidentiality, including deletion of data from the company’s systems, against Bansal. It had also filed a Rs 143 crore counter-claim against Bansal for loss and damage. On these grounds, it had held back a significant portion of the severance pay.The sole arbitrator in the case, former Supreme Court judge RV Raveendran, is said to have dismissed all these charges and rejected the counter-claim, and ruled that Bansal be paid the entire Rs 17.38 crore that was contractually due to him. The arbitrator also ordered payment of 12% interest per annum effective January 1, 2018, and the arbitration costs.On Tuesday, Bansal filed a caveat petition in the civil court to ensure that if Infosys takes the severance pay issue to court, he will have the opportunity to be heard.Infosys said in a statement to the stock exchanges that it will take legal advice for necessary actions to be undertaken in respect of the award. “While the award acknowledges that Infosys had bona fide disputes, its counter claim for refund of previously paid severance amount of Rs 5.2 crore and damages, has been rejected,” Infosys said.According to the caveat petition accessed by TOI, the arbitrator ruled that there was no deficiency in Bansal's service record and he had been in full compliance of all the terms of agreement and had not breached any of them. He held that Bansal had returned the company property including his laptop and rejected Infosys' contention of deletion of data. The arbitrator also rejected Infosys's counter claim of Rs 143 crore “towards loss and damage both on facts and in law, as also its claim for the refund of amount already paid…”Law firm Indus Law represented Bansal, and Nishith Desai Associates was Infosys' counsel.When Bansal was asked to leave in October 2015, Infosys signed an agreement with him under which it undertook to pay Bansal the equivalent of 24 months' pay in tranches, and paid an initial amount of Rs 5.2 crore.The total amount granted was unprecedented in Infosys’ history. The then chairman R Seshasayee initially justified it saying the company wanted to acknowledge Bansal’s contribution to the company. He said the payment was also part of a non-compete, non-disclosure agreement with him, given that as CFO, he was privy to price sensitive information. The company also indicated it needed to move to international standards in matters like severance payouts to attract global talent.Co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, however, said he was concerned at the impact of such payouts on employee morale at Infosys – given that employees were being given only a part of their variable pay, even as Bansal was being given such a hefty severance pay. Murthy also suggested that the payment was `hush money', to keep Bansal from disclosing actions that violated the company's corporate governance standards. There were suggestions that this related to the $200-million acquisition of Israeli company Panaya.Following the furore, the Board admitted the pay was excessive, that an element of subjectivity had influenced the quantum of severance pay and that it had since put in place a policy to ensure that there would not be a repeat of it. However, investigations by independent bodies rejected the other allegations.Meanwhile, Bansal, who had by then joined cab aggregator Ola as CFO, used his rights to arbitrate his claim to full payment of his severance pay.