No ready evidence that auditors colluded: ICAI

There is no ready evidence that the jailed Price Waterhouse (PW) auditors in the Satyam Computer Services scandal had also colluded, says Uttam Prakash Agarwal, president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

They and the former chief financial officer of Satyam, Vadlamani Srinivas, seemed to have acted on the instructions of Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju and his brother B Rama Raju, who are the master brains behind the Rs 7,800 crore financial scam at the IT company, he said here today.

He spoke to a section of the media here after recording the statements of the former CFO and the PW auditors, now housed at the Chanchalguda central jail.

Agarwal and two others, Kantilal Dagga and Ranganathan, all members of the high-powered committee of the ICAI, the apex body regulating the profession of chartered accountants, interrogated the three chartered accountants for two days.

According to Agarwal, Vadlamani categorically denied making any fake documents and stressed that the fraud was masterminded by the Raju brothers and he merely acted on their instructions. He initially opposed the wrongdoings but had limitations and had to accept the instructions of the duo, he said.

Vadlamani now regretted being part of the Satyam team, Agarwal said. Vadlamani also said that the PW auditors had done the auditing and gave their opinions by following all the rules of auditing. He also supposedly said that the PW auditors did not get any benefits or incentives for colluding with the Raju brothers.

To a query if the ICAI was giving a clean chit to the auditors in the Satyam case, he said the ICAI team only heard their statements. Based on the interaction the ICAI team had with them in the jail, on the face of it the auditors had no role in the Satyam scandal, Agarwal said.