Satyam: CBI team in Hyderabad

A 16-member team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrived here on Friday to take over further investigation into the multi-crore fraud in Satyam Computers from the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of and hra Pradesh police. CBI Deputy Inspector General here V.V. Lakshminarayana, who heads the team, told The Hindu that the Central agency had filed a fresh First Information Report (FIR) in the designated court here for CBI cases of this nature. The FIR was registered against former Satyam Computers chairman B. Ramalinga Raju, company directors, auditors and others under the same provisions of Indian Penal Code as those invoked by the CID. The team would be briefed by CID investigators on Saturday. The CID would also hand over the Case Diary (CD) containing developments in the case on an everyday basis since January 9. Mr. Lakshminarayana said the CBI would be assisted by officials of Income-Tax Department, Registrar of Companies, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Serious Fraud Investigation Office and the Stamps and Registration department of the State government. They would be soon joining the team along with representatives of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India which have offered to assist in the probe. Meanwhile, senior officers of CID went into the withdrawal mode as they began arranging for handing over material to CBI, including 200 trunk loads of records, and to send back the staff drafted earlier for investigation. The public prosecutor informed the Sixth Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, who adjudicated in the matter so far, that the case was being transferred to a different court in the wake of CBI taking up investigation. On court orders, a SEBI team interrogated Price Waterhouse auditors S. Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas and former Chief Financial Officer Srinivas Vadlamani in jail. Fake receipts? The team confronted the auditors with the confession of Ramalinga Raju that the fixed deposit receipts submitted to them were fake. The auditors held that they had trusted their client and did not imagine he would generate such documents. Special Correspondent from New Delhi adds Describing the alleged scam as “unique”, a CBI spokesman here said the agency had constituted a multi-disciplinary investigation team (MDIT) which would be headquartered in Hyderabad. The Superintendent of Police (SP) of CBI in Hyderabad would be the Chief Investigating Officer. The MDIT would also consist of an SP, Bank Securities and Fraud Cell of CBI, and an Assistant General Manager of State Bank of India who is posted as a technical officer in the premier agency. The spokesman said the Cabinet Secretariat had promised to provide necessary support of various departments, Ministries and institutions to the CBI.