CBI preparing Letters Rogatory in Satyam case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the Satyam Computer Services fraud case, is currently in the process of preparing Letters Rogatory, which would be vetted by the Ministry of External Affairs before being presented in the court.

A Letter Rogatory (LR) is a formal request from a court here to a foreign court for judicial assistance. To be sent through a consular or diplomatic channel, the LRs are meant to get evidence.

“Some aspects of diversion of funds from Satyam have been identified. We suspect the money has gone abroad,” a CBI official engaged in the investigation told Business Standard.

CBI’s Multi-Disciplinary Investigation Team (MDIT) suspects that Satyam promoters have diverted the company’s funds to foreign accounts, particularly those located in the US, UK and Mauritius.

The CBI plans to send its teams to these countries after the issue of LRs to assist the local investigating agencies in identifying and locating the people and documents it wants to examine. “We want to send our teams to expedite the investigation process,” the official said.

He reiterated that CBI wanted to subject those charged in the Satyam fraud case to a lie detection test to cross-check “some of the things revealed to us in the course of investigation”.

He said the CBI is also examining why Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced chairman, wanted Satyam to acquire Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties and what properties were acquired abroad prior to his confession to fudging of accounts.

After filing its chargesheet on April 7, the CBI started compiling all the information on the expenditure by the Hyderabad-based IT firm between 2001 and January 2009. This exercise is aimed at finding if the promoters siphoned off funds.