Govt forms Committee to expedite Satyam investigation

The government has formed a committee with representations from market regulator Sebi, CBI and Enforcement Directorate to expedite investigation in the over Rs 10,000-crore accounting scam in IT firm Satyam Computer.

The Coordination Committee will be headed by Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, official sources said.

"We want to finish the investigation (of the Satyam case) by the end of this year. Hence, the Coordination Committee," an official told PTI.

Multi-disciplinary agencies have been asked to designate officers of the level of Joint Secretary to be part of the Coordination Committee.

It is almost a year since Satyam Computer Services' (now Mahindra Satyam) founder B Ramalinga Raju confessed to having cooked the company's books by inflating profits.

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), which was to submit its report on the money-siphoning angle on October 13, is yet to file a chargesheet. The CBI, another agency investigating the scam, is also expected to file its second chargesheet soon.

Sebi, however, said that it would complete investigation and take action against the Satyam accused latest by next year.

The ED, which has attached close to 285 properties worth over Rs 1,000 crore of Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju, his relatives and others on the charge of money laundering, is now probing more such assets.

SFIO has already submitted a 14,000-page report on the Satyam scam to the MCA. The investigative agency in its preliminary report showed violations of various provisions of the Indian Penal Code like criminal breach of trust, forgery and cheating.

However, sources say, the 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 Depositories Receipts worth $100 million is yet to be detected.

On April 7, CBI had filed a charge sheet against Raju and eight others under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for cheating and forgery.

The CBI had submitted 1,532 original documents of bank transactions and 65,000-pages of other documents, which included the statements of 432 witnesses in the case along with the chargesheet.