Satyam’s accounting system was manipulated: CBI

28 Apr 2009, ET Bureau


NEW DELHI: The CBI has finalised investigations into falsification of accounts and forgery of documents in the Satyam fraud case and found that the accounting system was manipulated to inflate the company’s sales by Rs 5,117 crores.

Using cyber forensic techniques, the investigating agency said it had uncovered the modus operandi used by the accused to show inflated sales by Satyam Computers Service.

According to the CBI, officials at Satyam created a protocol to manipulate software computing man hours spent on client projects in order to show inflated sales by Satyam to the tune of Rs 4,746 crores. Through this protocol, the CBI said, the accused bypassed the regular system and created false invoices that were shown only to the company’s finance department and not clients. However, the CBI investigations till now only pertains to misdeeds owned up by accused Ramalinga Raju and throws no light on the alleged diversion of funds.

“Investigation further revealed that these invoices were generated for the purpose of inflating the sales and the amounts pertaining to these false and fabricated invoices were shown as receivables in the books of accounts of M/s SCSL thereby dishonestly inflating the revenues of the company,’’ a CBI spokesperson said in a release here. The CBI found 7,561 fake invoices worth Rs 5,117 crores in the course of the investigations . Out of these 7,561 invoices, the CBI said, the accused entered 6,603 of these false invoices amounting to Rs 4,746 crores into the books of accounts.

The investigating agency further said that it had identified the individuals who had generated and hidden these false and fabricated invoices and also identified the computer server where incriminating electronic records were stored. CBI said that the incriminating data had been retrieved and that the agency had also got opinions from computer forensic experts.

“As a result of this detection, the actual modus operandi as well as the individuals who have perpetrated the fraud have been identified which resulted in unearthing the whole fraud and helped in finalisation of the investigation,” CBI said. Meanwhile, a trial court on Saturday also dismissed the bails application of accused B Ramalinga Raju, B Ramaraju and V Srinivas. Apart from these three accused, five others are in custody.