Chandrashekar Kakal, Infosys senior vice-president who recently announced his resignation, will join rival IT services firm L&T Infotech as its chief operating officer (COO), industry sources said.

According to the sources said Mr. Kakal will join L&T Infotech towards the end of April. Mumbai-based L&T Infotech, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of construction & engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T), provides end-to-end IT solutions across sectors like BFSI, energy, consumer electronics, utilities and healthcare.

However, L&T Infotech declined to comment on the matter. When contacted, a spokesperson for the company said, "We do not comment on market speculation."

Mr. Kakal, the head the India Business Unit, was also responsible for application development, maintenance, testing, as well as infrastructure management verticals at Infosys. As per some reports, he resigned because the company promoted vice presidents B. G. Srinivas and U. B. Pravin Rao as presidents, despite him holding bigger responsibilities. He had joined Infosys in 1999.

He became the ninth high-ranking Infosys executive to quit since the return of N. R. Narayana Murthy in June last year.

Infosys stock jumped marginally to close at Rs 3,305.25 a share on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday, when the stock market closed nearly flat.