Mumbai Cong wants Parekh out of Satyam board

The Mumbai Congress wants HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh to step down from the board of Satyam in light of the revelations by a report of the Income Tax (I-T) Department in 2002.

The report had said that senior staff of HDFC Bank and six other banks helped members of the Ramalinga Raju family open benami accounts to deposit the money allegedly siphoned off from Satyam.

Kripa Sankar Singh, president of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC), told Business Standard that he would request Parekh to “voluntarily step down from the board for an impartial probe into the Satyam scam”. Singh said the MRCC had requested Congress President Sonia Gandhi to look into the matter.

“We are not alleging that Parekh was aware of the irregularities at the branch, but he should take moral responsibility,” Singh said.

The 2002 report, by the Hyderabad-based deputy director of the department, said that six banks flouted the know-your-client guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India. The report said deposits worth Rs 19.50 crore were made in the name of Raju’s relatives.

These deposits were made in Syndicate Bank and ING Vysya Bank’s (then Vysya Bank Ltd) Banjara Hill branches, State Bank of Hyderabad’s Begumpet branch, Axis Bank’s (then UTI Bank) Kakinada branch, HDFC Bank’s Vishakhapatnam branch and Karur Vysya Bank’s Vijaywada branch.