PriceWaterhouse disappointed over conviction of ex-associates

The global auditing firm PriceWaterhouse India today said two of its former associates, S Gopalakrishnana and Srinivas Talluri, who were sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment by a special court here in Satyam case, may challenge the verdict in the higher court.
The firm said in a statement that it was "disappointed" by the verdict.
"We are disappointed with this verdict. As we have said many times, there has never been any evidence presented that either of our former partners S Gopalakrishnan or Srinivas Talluri were involved in or were aware of the management-led fraud at Satyam.
"We understand that Gopal and Talluri are considering filing an appeal against this verdict," PriceWaterhouse said.

Manoj Fadnis, President of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, said it had already removed six persons from its Register of Members' besides imposing penalty of Rs 5 lakh on each of them for professional misconduct.
In the wake of Satyam scam, disciplinary action was initiated against S Gopalakrishnan and S Talluri; P Siva Prasad and C Ravindernath, audit in-charge(s) from Price Waterhouse; V Srinivasu, then CFO of SCCL, and V S Prabhakara Gupta, Head of Internal Audit Department of Satyam, Fadnis said.
Gupta was also sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment by the court today.
The court convicted and sentenced Satyam Computers founder B Ramalinga Raju, his brother B Rama Raju, and eight others, six years after the multi-crore accounting scandal at Sathyam came to light.