Appointment on Satyam board was not clash of interest: Parekh

Deepak Parekh, non-executive chairman of HDFC, today dismissed criticism by Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) against his appointment on the board of scam-tainted Satyam Computer, saying there was no clash of interest.

"You are not here to please people, so let them criticise," he said while answering in a negative if there was a clash of interest between he being on Satyam board and HDFC.

In its final report on the role of auditors in Saytam, ICAI had said last month, "...The Committee is unable to understand how the Chairman of HDFC Bank was appointed as an independent director post Satyam fiasco."

Referring to the appointment on the board for Satyam, after its founder Chairman B Ramalinga Raju disclosed the massive accounting and financial fraud, Parekh said the quick decision by the government helped revival of the company.

Following the admission of the fraud by Raju in January 2009, the government superseded the then Satyam board appointing its own nominees who, besides Parekh, were Kiran Karnik, T N Manoharan, S B Mainak, C Achutan and Tarun Das.

Later, the IT company was taken over by Tech Mahindra and renamed Mahindra Satyam.

Parekh said, "I don't sit on the (HDFC) Bank Board and we were really not the lender. They (Satyam) had fictitious fixed deposits with the Bank, which were non-existent. We were lenders in Maytas (a company promoted by Raju's son) but not to Satyam."

He, however, clarified that HDFC Bank had some foreign exchange exposure, but it was not lending.

"They (Satyam) had taken foreign exchange cover. So, there was some foreign exchange cover," he added.