Market watchdog meets minister over Satyam scam
By IANSFriday, January 9, 2009
NEW DELHI - India’s capital market regulator C.B. Bhave met Corporate Affairs Minister P.C. Gupta Saturday evening to discuss the ongoing investigations into the Rs.70 billion (Rs.7,000-crore) Satyam accounting scam, a ministry official said.
‘The ministry and SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) are jointly probing the Satyam scandal. Bhave has met the minister to discuss the developments that have unfolded of late,’ he added.
Earlier Saturday, Satyam’s disgraced founder B. Ramalinga Raju and his brother B. Rama Raju were sent to jail by the VI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in Hyderabad till Jan 23.
The Raju brothers were arrested Friday night.
The government had intervened Friday to supersede the Satyam board. Announcing this, company affairs minister Gupta said at a press conference: ‘The government should be allowed to appoint 10 nominee directors for the company. The new board has to meet within the next seven days.
‘The Company Law Board has already issued an order to the existing directors of the board restraining them from exercising their functions and the order becomes effective immediately,’ the minister had added.
A SEBI team has been conducting the probe into the fraud since Thursday and checked the books of accounts at Satyam offices in Hyderabad.
Sleuths of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Andhra Pradesh police grilled Raju and his brother for over three hours Friday night.
