SFIO to check books of 350 firms to track funds

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) will scrutinise the balance sheets of over 350 companies and 800 bank accounts to track the money allegedly stashed abroad by the promoters of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services.

The SFIO, the investigating arm of the corporate affairs ministry, may seek more time to complete investigation and submit its report on the movements of funds.

The agency has been asked by the ministry to probe the angle of siphoning off of money in the Satyam fraud and submit its report in two months.

“The investigation could take time as the financial accounts over 350 companies need to be reinstated and over 700-800 bank accounts need to be checked, which may take more than two months. Inspections like these need months to be completed,” an official source told PTI.

Ever since Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju confessed to the accounting scam in January this year, there have been suspicions about funds having been shifted overseas.

The SFIO submitted a detailed report on the fraud to the government in April, but sources say that the SFIO’s 14,000-page report has not been able to track the chain of events leading to diversions of funds.

Sources said the SFIO report does not indicate who the beneficiaries of third-party transactions, of about Rs 600 crore, are. Similarly, the end use of funds raised through American Depository Receipts worth $100 million is yet to be detected.

Talking to reporters in Hyderabad last week, Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, “There are still some aspects to be reported on and the final report will now come.”

The Minister also dismissed media reports that the government is not satisfied with the preliminary report submitted by the SFIO. “There’s no question of not being satisfied with the report,” he had said.

The SFIO in its preliminary report showed violations of various provisions of the Indian Penal Code such as criminal breach of trust, forgery and cheating.