Probe panel finds evidence

Hyderabad Jan. 13: The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has affirmed that the Satyam management led by Mr B. Ramalinga Raju was involved in conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, forgery, cheating and violations of the Companies Act and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) rules. Officials of the SFIO, which comes under the ministry of corporate affa-irs, found prima facie evidence of mammoth fraud during the inspections they carried out in Satyam offices on Tuesday. The SFIO, set up in 2003, is a multi-disciplinary agency having experts from financial sector, capital market, accountancy, forensic audit, taxation, law, IT and investigation. An SFIO team led by Mr Puneet Rastogi has been in the city from January 8. Sources said nearly half of the SFIO staff, including top experts, is part of the team. The SFIO additional director, Mr K.V.S. Singh and joint director (banking), Mr Sudhir D. Sam-ant, also arrived in the city for the probe. Meanwhile, the ministry issued a formal order under Section 235 and 237 of Companies Act to investigate the Satyam fraud case based on the preliminary report of the Registrar of Companies. The corporate affairs minister, Mr Prem Chand Gupta, said in Delhi the SFIO had been asked to submit its probe report in three months. A senior official said it was clear that the Raju brothers and promoters forged documents and cheated the investors who lost Rs 10,000 crore in the market. “They will be probed under Section 628 of Companies Act for falsification of balance sheet and under Sebi Act for fraudulent practices and insider trading,” he added. “All of them — the brothers, CFO and regular directors—will face prosecution.” However, the 20-member SFIO team in the city will not look into the assets and liabilities of Satyam and its promoters. It will be focused on the account books. An official said that SFIO will not make any arrests in the case. “The CID will continue its probe and the court may merge both the cases when the charge-sheet is filed,” he added. This is the first time the SFIO is taking up a case of this magnitude. It usually takes up cases of closed down companies.

Satyam may get Rs 2,000cr

New Delhi Jan. 13: The corporate affa-irs minister, Mr Prem Chand Gupta, in a high level meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmo-han Singh, informed that Satyam may need Rs 500 crore immediately to meet salary and other working liabilities of the company, said sources. Further, over a period of four months it may need an assistance of Rs 2,000 crore from the government. During the meet at the Prime Minister’s residence, among the options, apart from government funding, the leaders also deliberated over the possibility of selling Satyam’s assets to raise funds, sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said adding that Dr Singh was closely monitoring the Satyam developments. Among the leaders who attended the meeting were the external affairs minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, the home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, the commerce and industry minister, Mr Kamal Nath, the corporate affairs minister, Mr P.C. Gupta and the deputy chairman of planning commission, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

PC: India can snap Pak ties

London Jan. 13: The Union home minister, Mr P. Chidam-baram, has said that India would break off business, transport and tourist links with Pakistan and isolate it from the rest of the world if it fails to help to investigate the 26/11 terrorist attacks, according to a report here. Accusing Pakistan of doing nothing to assist India in the investigation into the Mumbai terrorist attacks, Mr Chidambaram told London’s Times in an interview that Islamabad had done nothing to help. “Zero. What have they provided? Nothing,” he said. Indicating the line of act-ion India would take against Pakistan, Mr Chidambaram, who took over as the home minister after 26/11 attacks, said: “There are many, many links between India and Pakistan, and if Pakistan does not cooperate and does not help to bring the perpetrators to heel, those ties will become weaker and weaker and one day snap.” “Why would we entertain Pakistani business people? Why would we entertain tourists in India? Why would we send tourists there?” he said. However, Mr Chidamb-aram did not reveal when India might introduce these measures against Pakistan. He only said: “We need cooperation soon.” The newspaper also quoted an unnamed senior government source in India as denying any link between Kashmir and the Mumbai terror attacks.

Police in fix as ex-CEO flees to US

Hyderabad Jan. 13: Police wants to question Mr Ram Mynampati, “the interim CEO” of Satyam, to ascertain certain aspects of the fraud but has no idea where he is at present. Meanwhile, the Crime Investigation Department arrested Satyam’s former chief financial officer, Mr Srinivas Vadlamani, after questioning him for five hours. Sleuths got interested in interrogating Mr Mynampati after learning that he had reportedly offloaded over 92,000 shares of Satyam in the stock market in September 2008. Though Mr Mynampati ceased to be the CEO of Satyam Computers after the new board took over, company officials claim he is in the United States talking to “clients”. Police, however, thinks he is in India. CID officers denied reports that he was arrested on Tuesday. Mr Mynampati is now president of Satyam’s commercial healthcare and banking division. He is also head of Citysoft, a subsidiary firm that Satyam took over in 2005. “He left for the US on Sunday and we have no idea when he is coming back to India,” said a Satyam spokesperson. The CID inspector-general, Mr V.S.K. Koumudi, said Mr Mynampati has not been questioned so far. “He has not communicated with us,” he said. Police sources believe that Mr Mynampati must be seeking legal opinion and would surface soon. Mr Koumudi denied reports of CID questioning former ISB dean, Mr Rammohan Rao, and ex-Cabinet secretary, Mr T.R. Prasad. However, he did not rule out the possibility of sleuths questioning them. Meanwhile, the CID conducted raids on the offices of Satyam’s auditing firm, PricewaterhouseCooper, and seized records.

Lanka vows to flush out LTTE

COLOMBO Jan. 13: There is no going back on the military offensive against the LTTE, Sri Lankan minister and government spokesman for defence and national security, Dr Keheliya Rambukwella said, dismissing calls by ethnic Tamil political parties here and politicians from Tamil Nadu for cessation of hostilities. He also said that a friendship network on social utility site such as Facebook would be a useful tool for building trust and confidence between the Tamil minority and Sinhalas. In an interview to this newspaper here, Dr Rambukwella said the Sri Lankan troops would press on with military operations against the LTTE. “We have restricted them to a 30 sq km area and we are very confident that we will flush them out,” he said. He thought the only sliver of hope left for LTTE chief Prabhakaran was to lay down arms. “If the LTTE lays down arms totally and physically, not symbolically, and we are satisfied, then we could (consider talks),” he said when asked whether doors were still open for negotiations. Invoking the reformation of bandit Angulimal after an encounter with Lord Buddha, Dr Rambukwella said Buddhism preaches tolerance and Prabhakaran could still attain “Nirvana” if he laid down arms. He dismissed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s calls for a ceasefire as his “political compulsion”. “We have excellent relations with India, which has come to realise that terrorism at any cost has to be stopped. We cannot give into it whether it is Mumbai or Gaza or Colombo or Jaffna,” he asserted.

Priyanka may enter poll fray

New Delhi Jan. 13: The Congress, in an attempt to reach out to the 55 per cent of India’s population which is under 25, on Tuesday described both AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka as the country’s “youth icons”. The AICC media department head, Mr M. Veerappa Moily, told reporters: “Both Rahul and Priyanka are youth icons. Young people in the country want to see young leaders.” While senior party leaders, including the external affairs minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, and the AICC general secretary, Mr Digv-ijay Singh, have openly endorsed the Amethi MP’s name as a potential Prime Minister, the Congress brought up the name of his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra with just a few months to go before the next general elections. Mr Moily said there was a “spontaneous” demand from people and party units across the country to bring Ms Priyanka Vadra into active politics, but then went on to add that it was of course for her (Priyanka) and for the Congress president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, “to take a final call on the matter.” The Congress spokesperson, Ms Jayanthi Natarajan, while not confirming if there was any move to field Ms Priyanka in the Lok Sabha elections from Mo-radabad in Uttar Pradesh, had told reporters here on Monday that Ms Priyanka’s entry into the fray would be “beneficial” to the party.

Fuel price cut likely tomorrow

New Delhi, Jan. 13: The government may on Thurs-day cut petrol, diesel and domestic LPG prices, a petroleum ministry official said on Tuesday. The Cabinet, scheduled to meet on Thursday, may reduce petrol price by Rs 5 a litre, diesel by Rs 2 per litre and domestic LPG by Rs 25 per cylinder, the official said. State-run oil companies are currently making Rs 9.70 a litre profit on sale of petrol, Rs 3.70 a litre on diesel, but are losing Rs 31.70 per LPG cylinder and Rs 11.69 on every litre of kerosene. “There is also a proposal for freeing the retail fuel prices from administrative control after a mechanism to compensate for the losses on LPG and kerosene is devised,” he said.