Directors ask Satyam to disclose board meet details

Satyam Computers’ independent directors are mounting pressure on founder B Ramalinga Raju to reveal details of the controversial board meeting that proposed the acquisition of two promoter-related companies, after a director resigned yesterday owning moral responsibility. Directors want Satyam’s founders to make public the minutes of the meeting at which around Rs 5,500 crore of the company’s cash was proposed to be paid to acquire Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties.

One of the independent directors said on condition of anonymity that Satyam should give investors the entire background and information that the board considered while deciding on the buyout. “Certain information is confidential, but other information can be shared. We will discuss this at the board meeting on Monday,” he said.

TR Prasad, another independent director, told PTI that he had made the company record his opinion at the last board meeting when the decision to acquire Maytas was taken. He declined to comment on the resignation of Mangalam Srinivasan, who has been on Satyam’s board since 1991.

Independent directors have been under intense moral pressure on their role in the board’s decision. In a letter to the prime minister, Rajya Sabha member Abani Roy demanded the resignation of Indian School of Business (ISB) Dean Rammohan Rao, an independent director on Satyam’s board, from the selection panel of government and regulatory positions.

Rao is a member of the appointment and selection committees for the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, and chairmen of Securities Exchange Board of India and of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

Rao, however, said he is “not taking any action at the moment. At the next board meeting, there will be discussions, clarifications will be sought, and then I will take it forward.”

VS Raju, an independent director, said Srinivasan’s resignation was surprising and that there was no need for B Ramalinga Raju to resign. “We have been misunderstood. We feel there was not enough time for us to communicate our decisions to shareholders and investors,” he added.

Emails sent to Vinod Dham, and KG Palepu went unanswered.