Raju's confession - whistle blower's act, not of conscience

New Delhi: The confession of B Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced founder of Satyam, which unfolded as the biggest corporate scandal, was not prompted by his conscience rather a whistle blower's action. An email of a person, who claimed to be a former Satyam executive, to one of the firm's board members ignited a chain of events that led to the confession.

"The first email of Abraham was written to the company's independent director Krishna G Palepu on December 18, 2008 that Satyam did not have any liquid assets. He also maintained that the fact could be independently verified from its banks," an official, who is privy to the confidential SFIO report told The Economic Times. The findings are based on a 14,000-page report submitted by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) to the government earlier this week. The SFIO concluded the Satyam scandal to be Rs.7,333 crore as of end-September last year. Raju's revelations was the result of a actions of a person who leaped into the firm's scam using a pseudonym as Jose Abraham and asserted his involvement in Satyam's contracts with the World Bank. The email was sent a day after Mr Raju was forced to abort Satyam's plans to buy two companies linked to his family, Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties, after it ran into a storm of investor protest.