CBI asked to probe Satyam scam: Govt

Premier investigating agency CBI has been ordered to probe the accounting fraud in Satyam Computer, whose founder Ramalinga Raju had disclosed cooking books over 40 days ago, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta said while the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) under his ministry had been given three-months to wrap up its probe into the Satyam scam, no time-frame has been set for CBI.

"Yesterday, the government ordered CBI investigation into the whole issue," he said. Gupta evaded replying to demands for setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to go into all aspects of the Satyam scam, including allegations of political patronage to its disgraced founder B Ramalinga Raju.

He also did not say if investigation would be launched into accounts of the companies audited by Price Waterhouse, the statutory auditors for Satyam.

"The SEBI has ordered peer audit review of companies listed on Sensex and Nifty. Once peer review is over, government will decide what to do," he said.

Gupta said RBI had in October 2004 issued advisory to banks not to engage Price Waterhouse for audits after unearthing of accounting deficiencies in Global Trust Bank (GBT), whose account it was auditing.

It's just fraud, not corporate governance failure: Mittal
It can be termed as unfortunate, but nobody can do anything if someone is contemplating fraud, Indian corporate leader Sunil Mittal said on Tuesday about the massive financial wrong-doings at Satyam Computer.

"It's unfortunate. But this is not a corporate governance issue. It is clearly a fraud," Mittal said on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress being held in Barcelona.

"Most of the Fortune 500 companies were (being) served by Satyam. The board was very strong. If fraud is going on in someone's mind, nobody can do anything about that," said Mittal, who heads India's largest telecom company Bharti Airtel.