Jan 11 2009
India’s Enron: Ramalinga Raju arrested
In one of the biggest corporate scandals of India ever the chairman of the Satyam Computer Services, Ramalinga Raju, has been arrested after a case was filed charging him forgery and other criminal offences. The whole speculations or controversial rumours started about a month ago when Satyam had tried to take over two parent firms. Satyam chairman was quick to review the plan but by then World Bank had publicly reported that its banning Satyam for eight years for lack of proper invoices.Since then one after the shocking revelations has crippled and shamed the Indian corporate world. We hope that the incident of Satyam does not go on to relate to other corporate biggies and people remember that its a separate incident and the same does not apply to all the companies of India Inc.Being one of the four largest IT firms in India the effect of the Satyam scandal is going to be far reaching. The Central Government has already taken over the management board of the company and dispatched its members. Center will announce the new board of members soon. Ramalinga Raju has accepted in the letter himself that he is going to face the consequences under the law of land but what about the 60,000 workers Satyam clams to have? They are waiting for a miracle to hope to turn the company’s luck. Many students from engineering colleges in Kolkata were to join the company soon this March or next year. Their future also stands uncertain now. The share prices of the company, as expected, has taken a sharp turn downwards and does not promise to return soon. Ramalinga had started few welfare programs in his birth place, a village, which now awaits for the approval to continue. The complete corporate governance and the role of auditors, banks financing corporate companies are now under scrutiny. A scandal of about 1 billion USD dollars in not a matter of joke and we can just hope that our Finance Ministry can take some rapid action to save the investors and the workers of the company.
