Prima facie major diversion of funds from Satyam: Govt

18 Jan 2009, PTI


NEW DELHI: The government on Sunday said prima facie there appeared "diversion" of funds from scam-tainted Satyam where the facts and figures in the balance sheet are not based on correct information.

"Prima facie aisa lagta hai ki diversion of funds ka kuch issue hai, jo facts and figures balance sheet mein show kiye gaye hai, they are not based on the correct information... galat kaam toh bahut hua hai," Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta said on how serious the Satyam crisis was.

Asked if there was a need to hand over the Satyam case to CBI in the face of reports of involvement of politicians with company's founder B Ramalinga Raju, he said, "As of now no such thing has surfaced... whatever is needed will be done... the government has ordered inspection of eight companies (Satyam subsidiaries)... investigation by SFIO has also been ordered".

On a query if the government feared a major land scam in Satyam's Maytas fiasco, the minister said he was not in a position to make any political statement on the issue.

At the same time he said the first information about Satyam is encouraging as the company's liabilities were not much. "Information ke hisaab se company ke upar bank aur institutions ki koi major liability nahi hai".

Asked about scores of suits filed in the US court against the company after it aborted Rs 8,000-crore deal to acquire two Maytas firms promoted by the family of Raju and his subsequent confession of cooking of accounts, Gupta said it would not be proper for him to talk about the law suits.

On a related query, Gupta said members of the newly- constituted board would not be held responsible for what was done by the previous board which was disbanded by the government after the Rs 7,800-crore scam came to the light.

"The government had advised the new board to engage a legal firm for it and take legal opinions and all necessary steps in this direction," he said.

He said there were two issues in handling the Satyam crisis — the first being the company's operations and the second relates to the regulatory system and investigation.

On the operations front, Satyam is a good company with a big brand name and the government has teamed up experts from IT, administration, law, finance and accounts to salvage the company and leverage from its impressive list of clients.

Apart from that, the company also has trained manpower and assets along with receivables of Rs 1,700 crore, the minister said, adding that if the company's operations are disturbed then many stakeholders would face major loss.

"Satyam ke operations agar disturb hote hain to bahut logo ko nuksaan hoga. That is why, personally I feel that the operations of Satyam should be a different affair than the regulatory and investigation issue," he added.

He said inspection and investigation in the company should be carried on separately without disturbing the operations of the company. "Regulatory work and fact finding of different things that agar paisa tha toh kaha gaya...yeh alag se chalta rahe...mere khayal se yahi strategy ziyada theek rahegi aisi situation mein".