Disgraced Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sat with his hands folded in a Manhattan federal courtroom yesterday, watching his former protégé and friend testify against him.
It was an awkward moment when Anil Kumar, 53, arrived to face his former mentor, who is on trial for insider trading.
Kumar worked with Gupta at consulting firm McKinsey, which Gupta headed from 1994 to 2003.
The duo are also credited with founding the prestigious Indian School of Business, which they helped to build from scratch in the late 1990s.
But yesterday afternoon, that once-warm friendship was long cold.
The Mumbai-born business consultant took the stand as a government witness and told the jury that Gupta fed hedge-fund honcho Raj Rajaratnam illegal stock tips while serving on the boards of Goldman and Procter & Gamble.
Gupta has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 25 years if convicted.
Kumar told the jury that Gupta’s ties to Rajaratnam’s hedge fund, Galleon Group, went back to 2006 when he was thinking of launching an asset management firm ahead of his 2007 retirement from McKinsey.
Kumar said Gupta often discussed his plans with Rajaratnam and that the two of them worked on many different plans to build a fund together — most of which never worked out.
Kumar, who has pleaded guilty for tipping Rajaratnam about chip maker AMD, also said he never witnessed Gupta spilling the beans to Rajaratnam on Goldman or P&G.
kwhitehouse@nypost.com
Anil Kumar, Raj Rajaratnam, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Indian School of Business, Gupta, Galleon Group
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