The Hindu : Front Page : Raju, 4 others directed not to sell assets

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Thursday, Jan 22, 2009
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Front Page

Raju, 4 others directed not to sell assets

Special Correspondent

CLB order on Centre’s plea

Executives told to disclose their bank accounts, properties
Board’s priority to bring Satyam back on its feet

NEW DELHI: The Company Law Board (CLB) on Wednesday directed Satyam Computer Services’ erstwhile chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, and four other former top functionaries, including R. Rama Raju, not to sell or mortgage their shares and other assets without its prior permission.

Passing the order on an application moved by the Centre, the CLB also directed Satyam’s former directors to disclose to the board their bank accounts and properties in India and abroad, Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta told the media here.

The other top executives covered under the CLB order are the IT major’s erstwhile CEO, Ram Mynampati; the former CFO, Srinivas Vadlamani; and Company Secretary G.J. Jayaraman.

Mr. Gupta said the government had moved an application before the CLB to ensure “that the persons who were at the helm of affairs of Satyam are not allowed to profit ... from any diversion and siphoning [off] of funds.”

Mr. Ramalinga Raju and other former executives “have been directed by the CLB to forward to the Bench Officer of the CLB, in sealed covers, particulars of their bank accounts, moveable and immoveable properties in India and elsewhere,” he said. The CLB directive has to be complied with by February 20.

The five senior erstwhile functionaries of Satyam had been directed “not to alienate, charge, mortgage or sell any of their shares, securities and fixed assets without leave of the CLB, till disposal of the main petition,” Mr. Gupta said.

To a query on the possibility of engineering major Larsen & Toubro taking over the crisis-ridden company, Mr. Gupta said the priority before the new board was to bring back Satyam on its feet so that the company’s fear about its employees, customers and clients was addressed. Although, a number of corporates had expressed interest in Satyam, “the government has not taken any view on that,” he said. “It is for the board to take a call on it [takeover of Satyam]. But as far as the government is concerned, there is no such thinking and no such move.”

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