CBI team takes over Satyam probe

HYDERABAD - A 16-member team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Saturday took over the probe into the Rs.70-billion (Rs.7,000-crore/$1.43 billion) Satyam Computer Services accounting fraud.

The team led by CBI Deputy Inspector General V.V. Lakshminarayana met officials of the Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) who had so far conducted the investigations into the corporate fraud.

The officials of the federal agency gathered details of the case from the CID and also took custody of the documents and hard discs seized from Satyam offices and the residences of disgraced former Satyam chairman B. Ramalinga Raju and other accused.

A. Shivanarayana, deputy inspector general of CID, and other officials briefed the CBI team of the details of the probe.

The CID sleuths also handed over to the CBI team the case diary, which contains the developments in the case on a day-to-day basis.

The federal agency Friday filed a fresh first information report (FIR) in the CBI court here against Ramalinga Raju, directors of the company, auditors and others.

The case has been registered under sections 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (forging documents including electronic) and 477A (falsification of accounts) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The CID, which launched probe soon after the scam broke out, had booked the case Jan 9 under similar sections of the IPC.

The Andhra Pradesh government had requested the central government for a CBI probe. It received a notification in this regard Wednesday.

Ramalinga Raju had Jan 7 confessed that he had cooked the company’s account books and inflated profits over the past several years.

The company founder and his brother B. Rama Raju were arrested by the CID Jan 9. Former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas was picked up the next day. The three along with two former auditors from Pricewaterhouse are currently lodged in Chanchalguda central jail here.

Officials of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) have interrogated them in jail.