Mumbai, March 27: Global tech giant Wipro on Friday quashed the reports of its founder and philanthropist Azim Premji donating over Rs 50,000 or 34 percent of his shares to an endowment under the Azim Premji Foundation to fight coronavirus. Wipro clarified that news of Premji donating Rs 50,000 crore is misleading as it took place in March 2019, and not now.

Releasing a statement on Friday, Wipro said, as quoted by CNBC-TV18, "The announcement was made in March 2019. No such announcement was made today." Earlier in the day, rumour made the rounds that India's biggest philanthropists had donated 34 percent of his shares which is worth Rs 52,750 crore. World Is in Recession, Can be Worse Than 2009 if Coronavirus Not Contained: IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva.

While, quashing all the claims, Wipro said that 74-year-old philanthropist had made the donations in mid-March 2019 for charitable causes wholeheartedly, that include Wipro shares and other assets owned by him. Following this, the Premji Foundation said last year that Premji’s endowment corpus stood at 1.45 lakh crore. The rumour about Premji's donation gained momentum after a person shared it on Twitter, which was thought by many as charitable donations to help the government in combating coronavirus outbreak in the country.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 28, 2020 12:14 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).