Another probe on Infy, this time in Texas

Infosys Ltd, India’s No 2 software services provider, said it was being investigated in Texas over its sponsorship and use of short-term US business visas.

Infosys said it received a subpoena last May from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to provide documents to a grand jury related its use of B1 visas.

In a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Wednesday, the company said it has now been told by the US Attorney’s Office that it and some employees are targets of the investigation.

B1 visas allow companies to send their employees to the United States for short-term business purposes.

“We want to reiterate that we are cooperating with the investigation and that we’ve never had a policy of visa misuse,” Infosys spokeswoman Sarah Vanita Gideon said.

Gideon said she could not immediately say how many B1 visas Infosys had applied for or been granted.

The development comes even as the US Federal Court in Alabama has set August 20, 2012 as the trial date for the visa fraud case against Infosys, based on a lawsuit filed in February 2011 by a former US-based consultant for the company, Jack Palmer, who had charged the company with visa fraud.

Palmer has accused Infosys of sending Indian employees to the US on short-term, non-employment B1 visas to “creatively” overcome H1-B visa cap. Unlike employees with H1-B visas, those with B1 visas are not permitted to work in the US.

Infosys has earlier tried the arbitration route to settle the case in November 2011 but the court had turned down the company’s request for arbitration.

The company has yet another complaint pending against it, relating to non-compliance of Form I-9, which is used by an employer to verify an employee’s identity and to establish that the worker is eligible to accept employment in the US.