Bengaluru, June 17 -- A legal battle between Mphasis Ltd and an employee it recently fired for allegedly stealing proprietary information has been escalating over claims of impersonation, email threats, disobeying court orders, an unreturned laptop, and whistleblower immunity.

The Indian information technology (IT) services company filed a complaint against Albert Rojas in a New York district court on 16 April for digitally impersonating chief executive Nitin Rakesh and threatening another employee, as well as allegedly disclosing proprietary information via duplicate websites.

Rojas, who was a client technical specialist with Mphasis in the US, has denied the charges. In his reply to the court on 10 June, Rojas stated that he created d...