The Mathew Samuel Salary Scam

In March 2016, Mathew Samuel launched his news portal, Narada – with a sting which stung West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress. The tapes which showed TMC leaders accepting cash as alleged bribes, are now being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation. However, Samuel has shut shop today. Around 20 employees have not been paid salaries running into lakhs since January 2017.

On March 27, senior photo-journalist, Vijay Pandey wrote to Samuel on Facebook, “I am badly in need of money… two months salary is [pending] with Narada. It’s becoming tough to survive. I have to pay school fees, house rent etc… Sir, please arrange funds”. Samuel replied, “28th will get it.”

According to Pandey, in the following conversation, Samuel blocked him for repeatedly asking for the salary which was owed to him. Till today, Samuel is yet to clear the salary of 19 other Narada employees, an amount running into lakh. Finally, after repeated requests to be paid and no response from Samuel, several of them decided to sue Samuel for “non-payment” of salaries.

Shamseer Mambra, former Narada employee, in a Facebook post on May 28 wrote of his anger and plight. “We, more than 20 employees who worked for Narada News’ English and Hindi bureaus and websites, have been cheated by the company and its Editor-in-Chief Mathew Samuel. The employees range from trainee sub-editors to senior journalists.” He also wrote, “Some have taken an extraordinary amount of debt and have nearly exhausted their savings.”

The employees moved the Delhi Labour Court on May 24. “The Labour Court has issued a hearing date of June 1. We will decide only after that what will be the next step,” Mambra told Newslaundry.

Importantly, Samuel appears least concerned about what he owes his employees and seems to have little understanding of the labour laws of the country. When Newslaundry asked him when he planned to clear the backlogs, his response was – “It is not my issue.”

According to Samuel, the present crisis is a result of the “harassment of Kolkata police”. He claimed he is not able to “operate” the current account of the company as the police has “unofficially” asked to freeze it. “Bank informally told me that we cannot operate the current bank out because it is under investigation,” Samuel told Newslaundry. Notably, speaking to Outlook.com Samuel had said that the Enforcement Directorate had “unofficially” asked his bankers to “suspend the operation of his accounts”.

According to Samuel, Narada’s investor – an “NRI neighbour in Kerala” with a non-journalist background – was scared because of the police summons. “The guy who invested money, he got lots of summons from the police. He backed out,” the Narada editor added. “I am a journalist today. I am not an investor. I am a mere stakeholder.” He said, “How can I run the institution in this situation?”

Although Samuel says he is merely a journalist, whether he feels responsible for these 20 employees or not, he is legally responsible for clearing their dues. According to documents accessed by Newslaundry, Narada is registered with RoC-Delhi as Narada Media India Private Limited. The three directors of the company are – Mathew Samuel, Akshay Kumar Vijayan and Angel Tincy Abraham.

Samuel is one of the signatories of the company and hence he is legally bound to address these issues.

Before starting Narada News, Samuel was Managing Editor of news magazine Tehelka. Ironically, Tehelka employees were given delayed salaries under Samuel. This continued even after Samuel’s exit.

Mambra, in his Facebook post, had claimed that he and the other employees were asked to resign in March. A media organisation is supposed to give a month’s notice period to its employees before closing down. “Most of us realised the office had shut only when we reached for work in the third week of March”, according to Mambra’s post.

Interestingly, those such as Pandey, who didn’t even resign, have received acceptance letters of resignation. “Even though I did not resign, an acceptance letter of my resignation was sent to me which stated that I worked there until March 31, 2017,” said Pandey. He has also received a salary slip, even though his salary hasn’t been paid yet. “It states the entire amount as Rs 1 lakh 60 thousand approximately. But only Rs 20,000 has been paid to me,” Pandey told Newslaundry.

According to employees, thanks to them making continuous calls and sending copious messages, small cash payments were made to them. “In April, some of the junior employees received a part of their salary in cash. It was a meagre amount,” said Shilpa Shaiji, a former Narada employee who resigned in March 2017.

Samuel in a conversation with one of his employees referred to this cash as “illegal.”

When Newslaundry asked Samuel about these cash payments, he said “[for this cash] I mortgaged my wife’s ornaments with a south Indian bank in Delhi.” According to him, he is in Kerala and is presently admitted in a hospital. Yet, these employees claim that he is healthy and running the Malayalam version of the website that too without any delay in payments. Samuel told Newslaundry that he had told employees of the Malayalam website to resign and there are only three to four employees who are currently keeping the site up and running.

Meanwhile, his employees have said that if no concrete solutions come out of the labour court hearings, they “will be forced to sit on a hunger strike in front of Mathew’s Delhi residence”.

Irony just killed itself at the realisation that the very person who holds a mirror up to others’ unlawful behaviour, is the one who needs to be called out for his own illegalities.

We will update this article as and when the employees are paid their dues, which hopefully will be soon.