Wrongful severance and settlement

Hi

I am a Senior executive in an Indian entity of a European company, headquartered in France. My employment location is Bangalore. I was rated '4 - Needs Significant Improvements' last year and consequently advised to go on Garden leave this year. I have to provide notice of 3 months, per my employment offer. Given below are the chronology of facts:

1. My senior colleague in America called me in the first week of Jan2020 to disclose my rating and the broad feedback. It is pertinent to note that I don't report to her and although she is at a higher grade and more tenured in the team, our roles are similar. I guess she is not part of the same forced ranking curve as me.
2. She had no details to support the rating or feedback. I therefore, scheduled a meeting with my direct supervisor (he took over from my earlier supervisor in the middle of last year), but he too did not have any details like who provided a negative feedback on me to him, when, on which instance, what did I do or not do etc.
3. He mentioned a couple of examples which were from April last year (we follow a Jan - Dec appraisal cycle), effectively meaning that my performance after that did not matter.
4. When I asked why he did not share the feedback with me immediately last year, his only excuse was that he wanted to observe my performance for the rest of the year. In short, he denied me the opportunity to be aware of the feedback and take corrective action, if necessary.
5. He stated that mostly he has heard feedback like "you are difficult to work with" and "you lack the ability to sell", but could not substantiate where these perceptions were coming from or if any loss of deals were specifically attributable to my failure.
6. It must be noted that until Oct last year, he persisted with allocating sales pursuits and responsibility of hosting client workshops to me. If he indeed received the above feedback, he made no effort to upskill me or nominate me for training.
7. When my earlier supervisor quit in July last year, I was stripped of my responsibility to lead the APAC team. This, in spite of the fact that I was the top performer among my peers last year, in terms of handling a portfolio of projects and sales pursuits consistently. There were no documented complaints or escalations against me and my utilization was among the topmost globally, in spite of 50% attrition in my team in 2018 which I managed to plug by mid-2019.
8. Up until that point of time, I was performing step-up roles for 30 months (hired as a Director and then bumped up to Senior Director due to entity integrations with no change in pay and then taking up the additional role of APAC lead in 2018) but none of these were considered in my appraisal.
9. Requisition for my back-up was raised in Oct last year and she was onboarded in Dec last year. It is pertinent to note that calibration discussions in my organization happen towards end of Oct or by mid Nov for senior levels. So, the decision on my rating, severance and hiring my back-up was taken well before the global calibration of appraisals for my grade.
10. My supervisor stopped allocating any work to me from Nov last year till now, in spite of my requests to utilize my free bandwiddth.
11. I met my HR by end of Jan this year to appeal against my biased appraisal, breach of my confidentiality in sharing my appraisal with my peer and conflict of interest (my current supervisor is distantly related to me, which I realized in Feb last year, but I was not reporting to him until July last year). I gave them all the evidences I had for all of the above and did not accept my appraisal still (deadline is already past).
12. My HR promised to constitute a neutral panel for hearing my appeal and the panel is currently reviewing it. It is pertinent to note that the panel members are from another entity but lower in grade than my supervisor. I expect their decision within a week of two.
13. In the meantime, my HR proposed a settlement package of 3 months' gross pay in lieu of notice + 3 months' gross pay for severance, in case I am not able to find a role internally within the organization (out of my current team) and either find a job outside the organization or remain jobless at the end of Apr 2020. They said they will pay me the settlement irrespective of whether I get a job outside or not within Apr 2020. Obviously, if I get a role within the group, then there is no question of an exit settlement.
14. I have not yet landed any role internally, since nobody wants to consider a '4' rater and my HR is aware of it. I had a discussion with them to relieve me once the outcome of my appeal is known. I stand to lose the variable bonus for last year as well as the proportionate amount for 6 months of my settlement package, if my appeal is rejected and the rating is retained at 4.
15. Surprisingly, my HR now contends that I have been on notice since Feb (after our discussion) and they are bound to pay only the 3 months' severance pay at the end of April, as agreed. I pointed out to them, that I have not yet resigned and therefore my notice period cannot start until I resign.
16. They insist that I have been drawing salary without performing any work for 3 months and therefore, they consider me to be on notice already.
17. My compensation also includes the company's monthly contribution towards Gratuity. My HR contends that since I have only spent a little over 3 years in the organization, gratuity is not payable. My contention is that gratuity is part of the retirals in my compensation and in this case, I am being asked to resign by the organization. Therefore, it should be payable.
18. If my HR's view as above, is valid, then, they will withhold 3 months' notice pay and gratuity accumulated over the last 3 years, which in total, is in the low 7-digit range.

Given the above background, my questions are as follows:

1. How valid is my appraisal? If my appeal is rejected, what options do I have?
2. Am I right in alleging violation of confidentiality and conflict of interest (please refer points 1 and 11 above)? If yes, what recourse do I have?
3. Is my HR justified in claiming that I am already on notice when I have not yet resigned and they have not formally asked me to do so?
4. I understand it is a small world and my first efforts should be towards an amicable settlement, but what options do I have to recover my dues as agreed?
5. I have minutes / notes documented for every meeting I have had since the beginning of this year. I use Otter app for capturing notes and edit it after hearing the recording. I do not retain the actual recording once I have finalized the notes. I have shared some of these with my company HR as well. Can this be considered a breach of privacy?

Please provide responses to all the questions above, quoting relevant case laws and judgements as applicable.

Regards

Eshwar