- Thursday, February 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
AN Indian-American engineer, who was allegedly fired by a defence company in the US for speaking in Hindi at work, has sued the firm.
Anil Varshney, 78, has filed a lawsuit in a court in Alabama wherein he has accused Parsons Corporation of “unlawful discriminatory actions”, the BBC reported.
He said he was speaking to a dying kin in India when a co-worker falsely accused him of violating “security regulations”.
Parsons has denied the charges.
“Mr Varshney was terminated after several security violations, including using Facetime on his personal phone in a government-controlled worksite among other previous security violations where such actions are prohibited and pose risks to national security,” the company said in a statement which was shared with the BBC.
It also added that the “series of documented improper conduct” flouted both company and government policies.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Alabama, names US defence secretary Lloyd Austin as the legal representative for the country’s Missile Defence Agency.
Varshney worked at Parsons between July 2011 and October 2022, the lawsuit added.
It said that he was speaking to his terminally ill brother-in-law “for approximately two minutes” when the co-worker reported him to company officials.
Varshney said before taking the call, he ensured that there was no “classified materials or anything else pertaining to the MDA or Parsons’ work anywhere near him”, the BBC report added.
He alleged that the company accused him of committing “a serious security violation” despite there being no policy barring the call and without any probe, the report said.
Varshney was fired in October.
“Worse, they blackballed him from future [MDA] work, effectively ending his career and life of service to MDA and the United States government,” the lawsuit added.
