Govt urges US regulator not to punish Satyam

India has requested the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) not to impose any fine on Mahindra Satyam, formerly Satyam Computer Services Ltd (SCSL), as this will impede the new entity’s rehabilitation.

The SEC has been probing the company, which is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), after founder-head Ramalinga Raju disclosed that his company’s accounts had been cooked for years. The scam, according to the Central Bureau of Information (CBI), could be to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore and not Rs 7,800 crore, as claimed by Raju initially.

“(Mahindra) Satyam has been put back on its feet. The biggest jolt in the Satyam fraud was to the shareholders and if the SEC imposes a penalty, they will be impacted. It will be a setback to the company, which is in the process of being rehabilitated,” said Salman Khurshid, Union minister for corporate affairs. He was speaking at the sidelines of a conference at the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management here.