A section of former employees of Google has filed a lawsuit against their former employer’s Alphabet Inc unit on Monday. The plaintiffs claimed that the company violated the terms of their employment agreements as it had not followed its infamous mantra “don’t be evil.”

In the suit filed at California State Court in Santa Clara county, the group of former Google employees comprising of Rebecca Rivers, Sophie Waldman and Paul Duke alleged that they were dismissed two years ago because they had in fact fulfilled their obligations as state din the job contract with the company of voicing their concerns when they observed Google in violation of the “don’t be evil” pledge.

There were no comments on the issue from Google.  

The search engine giant has stated before that employees had violated the company’s data security guidelines.

Their firings have also resulted in a National Labor Relations Board trial which is aimed to determine whether the company participated in unfair practices to stop the growing movement of workers.

Engineers from the rank-and-file in the company and others at other tech companies over the last few years have sought more control in the development of policies and projects within their firms. Managements have resisted such efforts in an attempt to retain complete control over businesses.

The three ex-Google engineers had expressed concerns at town halls as well as other forums within Google regarding the possibility of selling cloud-based technologies to US immigration authorities, who were at the time engaged in detention practices that were considered unacceptable by human rights activists such as separating children from migrant families away from families.

The plaintiffs considered the possible work in immigration “evil” under Google’s policies which require “acting honorably and treating each other with respect” and adhering to “the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct,” according to the lawsuit.

Google’s code of conduct states that employees who believe Google is in violation of its pledge are not to remain in silence, the plaintiffs noted in the lawsuit.

The former employees have approached the court to seek and recover an undisclosed amount of compensation.

Google has been promoting “don’t be evil” as the core value of its business for more than 20 years, and even when it was first made public in 2004.

(Adapted from NDTV.com)