A senior government official informed Reuters that the Ernst & Young (EY) office in Pune, which employed a 26-year-old who allegedly died due to a heavy workload, has been operating without a state authorization that governs work hours since 2007.
The death of audit executive Anna Sebastian Perayil, which her mother attributed to a “backbreaking” workload in a letter to the head of EY India, has drawn criticism for EY.
Investigations by the central government have already been prompted by the incident.
When Shailendra Pol, Maharashtra’s assistant labor commissioner, and his team visited the EY office in Pune, they discovered that it was functioning without the required registration required by the state’s Shops and Establishments Act.
Adults are only allowed to work a maximum of nine hours per day and 48 hours per week under the law.
According to Shailendra Pol, who spoke to Reuters on Tuesday, “The company applied for a registration with the labour department only in February 2024 and we rejected it because it had not applied since 2007 when it started this office,” EY has been given seven days to explain the gap.
Failure to comply with the law may result in a six-month jail sentence, a fine of up to ₹500,000, or both in the event that an accident causes a worker’s death or significant physical injury.
Upon receiving a comment request from Reuters, EY India did not immediately react. It has previously declared that it was “taking the family’s correspondence with the utmost seriousness and humility” and that it placed “the highest importance on the well-being of all employees”.
Anna Perayil’s mother, Anita Augustine, stated her daughter experienced “overwhelming workload” in her letter, which went viral on social media. “She worked late into the night, even on weekends, with no opportunity to catch her breath.”
According to Anna Perayil’s family, she passed away from cardiac arrest.