Not guilty, ready to cooperate with probe, says T R Prasad

Reacting to reports that he was likely to be arrested soon, T R Prasad, former director of the tainted Satyam board, today offered to cooperate with investigators and asserted that he did nothing wrong as an independent director.

Prasad, in a statement to the media this morning, said he watched broadcasts stating he “...was likely to be arrested by the evening”.

The statement said: “So far no investigation agency has contacted me. At least had the broadcasts named the agency contemplating my arrest, I myself would have taken the initiative to contact them. As a former cabinet secretary to the government of India, I am fully conscious of a citizen’s duties and responsibilities to cooperate with any investigative agency and comply with all court orders.

“Incidentally, I have the relevant material with me to establish that while serving as an independent director on Satyam board, I have faithfully discharged the responsibilities of such a director, as laid down in the judgement of the Bombay High Court, referred to in Shri Naresh Chandra committee report.”

Prasad yesterday also tendered his resignation as independent director at two GMR Group companies — GMR Infrastructure and another subsidiary Delhi International Airport Limited. GMR is a Bangalore-based group that focuses on infrastructure and is involved in the modernisation of Delhi airport. He also resigned from the TVS Motors board and boards of some other companies.

The former cabinet secretary’s travails began on December 16 when investors strongly opposed the proposal to buy two Maytas (Satyam spelt backward) properties for $1.6 billion. Both the properties are owned by Raju’s relatives.

Though the deal had to called off within hours, the independent directors faced substantial flak for passively accepting the rationale for the Maytas acquisitions. Consequently, four of the six independent directors on the Satyam board have resigned over the past fortnight. Mangalam Srinivasan was the first to resign on December 25. She was joined by Krishna G Palepu, Vinod K Dham and Mendu Rammohan Rao on December 29.

Prasad, however, said he would continue on the company’s board stating that “resigning from the board now is like deserting a troubled ship”. The remaining independent director V S Raju supported the board’s decision from start.

But on January 7, 2009, Raju resigned from his post, admitting to an over Rs 7,000 crore financial fraud.

While he did absolve the present and past board members of any knowledge of the fraud, he did mention, inter alia, that “...T R Prasad is well placed to mobilise support from the government at this crucial time”.

As a result, industry observers are not sure what to make of his statement today.