SFIO concludes Satyam probe

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), which had the task of investigating the Rs 7,000 crore Satyam fraud, has submitted its report to the government.

This is apart from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe. The CBI filed its formal chargesheet on April 7.

The government, on January 13, had initiated an SFIO probe into various corporate aspects of the fraud under Section 235 of the Companies Act after getting a report from the Registrar of Companies, Andhra Pradesh. “The report was submitted to the government on Monday night,” said a senior corporate affairs ministry official who declined to reveal the contents of the report.

Hyderabad-based Satyam was left in the lurch after its founder, B Ramalinga Raju, confessed to cooking the company’s books for many years. The SFIO was asked to look into all aspects of the case and was to give its report within three months. It has done so before the deadline.

The report runs into 12,000 pages in 30 volumes. While the SFIO has probed the money trail and other aspects within the country, it has referred the matter related to fund transfers outside India to the Enforcement Directorate.

According to another official, after the ministry examines the report, the government will decide whom to prosecute and under what provisions of law.

The SFIO is a multi-disciplinary body set up in 2003 to investigate serious financial frauds. It consists of tax professionals, auditors, fraud examiners, capital market experts and banking professionals.

Besides Satyam, the SFIO’s ambit included Maytas Properties and Maytas Infra, both promoted by Raju’s two sons. It inspected the books of accounts and documents of eight other companies connected with Satyam.

The investigations cover both breach of the Indian Penal Code and violations of the company law. On April 7, the CBI had filed a 2,315-page chargesheet against the nine accused, including B Ramalinga Raju, for perpetrating the fraud. The nine are charged with various breaches of the IPC, including criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery of valuable security, forgery for the purpose of cheating, using forged documents as genuine, falsification of accounts and causing disappearance of evidence.