The Enforcement Directorate (ED), following a local court order, has begun recording the statements of four Satyam employees accused in the Rs 7,500-crore financial fraud in the IT firm, senior officials said. Accordingly, a three-member ED team from Hyderabad, led by its deputy director N Sridhar, began recording their statements in the presence of their counsels at Chanchalguda Central Prison premises where the accused are under judicial remand till April 29. A special court trying the Satyam scam case last week permitted the ED to examine VS Prabhakar Gupta, former senior vice-president-cum-global head (Internal Audit cell) in Mahindra Satyam; G Ramakrishna, then vice-president (finance); D Venkatapathi Raju, former senior manager finance and Srisailam (assistant manager) in Satyam Computer Services Ltd (SCSL).
The directorate wants to examine the accused under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and also to learn how Satyam?s accounts were manipulated and what was the routing method. Meanwhile, the special court partly allowed the petition of the new management Mahindra Satyam to have access to the documents of the fraud company in the custody of the CBI.
This follows from the petition of Mahindra Satyam that sought release of the record rooms at Satyam Technology Centre (STC) and My Home Hub premises in Hyderabad, which was sealed by CBI as part of the investigations. Special judge BVLN Chakravarti allowed the petitioner to gain access to the seized documents.