Satyam case: SFIO to begin prosecution
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) will shortly begin prosecution of Satyam Computer founder B. Ramalinga Raju and others who perpetrated an accounting scam, which is being probed by multiple agencies. “SFIO has been asked to begin prosecution for violation of company law in the Satyam case... it will also be against partners of Price Waterhouse (Satyam’s auditor at that time),” a senior official of the Corporate Affairs Ministry told PTI. SFIO, an arm of the Corporate Affairs Ministry, had investigated the multi-crore Satyam accounting fraud and submitted a report to the government detailing violations of the company law by Raju and others. Thirty charges The investigating agency will initiate proceedings on about 30 charges mostly under the Companies Act 1956, while the CBI will be acting on five or six charges involving criminal offences under the penal code. The Corporate Affairs Ministry asked SFIO to initiate prosecution in the Satyam case after obtaining opinion of the Solicitor General of India. Besides Raju, the SFIO will seek prosecution of Raju’s brother Rama Raju, Satyam’s former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, and Price Waterhouse auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri. Raju had in January admitted to fudging the IT company’s books for years and has since been arrested and is awaiting trial. After the confessions made by Raju to the multi-crore accounting fraud in January, the Corporate Affairs Minister had ordered investigation into the scandal by the SFIO. The investigating agency submitted a 14,000-page preliminary report to the government in April. The SFIO report had highlighted various acts of commission and omission by Satyam founder Raju and the company’s auditor Price Waterhouse. Raju and the PW auditors had been arrested in the case. Besides SFIO, the Satyam fraud case has also been investigated by the CBI and other agencies of the Central and state governments, including SEBI and Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Satyam, under the directions of the Company Law Board, was sold to Tech Mahindra and has been rechristened Mahindra Satyam. –PTI