Hyderabad, November 22: Investigation into the infamous Satyam scandal seems to be picking up speed. On Saturday, CBI sleuths arrested VS Prabhakar Gupta, head of internal audit of the company, since renamed Mahindra Satyam. The CBI charge against Gupta was that he was a part of the conspiracy planned and executed by Ramalinga Raju relating to cooking the firm’s books and suppressing accounts for several years.
Soon after his arrest, Gupta was produced before the Nampally sessions court and the magistrate remanded him to judicial custody. Gupta’s counsel pleaded for bail on health grounds but the prosecution opposed it. The court posted the matter for further hearing to November 26. Sources said more arrests by CBI could be in the offing in the coming days with the investigating agency preparing the voluminous chargesheet that requires to be filed in the country’s biggest corporate scandal. Among those on the radar of CBI are both current and former senior officials of the company who, the agency believes, were very much involved in the fudging of accounts, either directly or indirectly.
‘‘The inquiry process has been on for the last six weeks. Several senior officials from finance, internal audit, M&A, corporate and business segments are being questioned as part of the investigation,’’ a senior company official told Express. Some former Satyamites, including those who held senior positions, are also reportedly being grilled by the CBI sleuths.
In its first chargesheet filed in April with statements of more than 400 witnesses and 1,500 documents, the CBI named nine accused, including Satyam’s erstwhile chairman B Ramalinga Raju, his brother B Rama Raju and Chief Financial Officer Srinivas Vadlamani under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for cheating and forgery.
—Agencies