By IANS,
New Delhi : Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for probing possible nexus between Satyam Computer Services and Maytas, the company owned by the family of the IT bellwether’s scam-tainted former chairman B. Ramalinga Raju.
In his letter, released Sunday, Karat said since the fraudulent dealings of the promoter of Satyam Computer Services became public, there is growing evidence that funds were siphoned off from Satyam to the Maytas group of companies, which is run by Raju’s family.
Raju and his brother and former managing director B. Rama Raju were arrested Jan 9, two days after Ramalinga Raju admitted to a massive fraud of Rs.70 billion (Rs.7,000 crore/$1.43 billion). Satyam’s former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas was arrested the next day. A Hyderabad court has sent all the three to judicial custody till Jan 23.
“The government has ordered a probe by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office into the Satyam Computer Services Ltd. This alone will not be sufficient. In the light of the nexus between the Satyam-Maytas group of companies, the probe should be extended to all the Maytas concerns,” Karat said in his letter dated Jan 17.
“An investigation to uncover all the illegal dealings of these companies is essential to restore public confidence,” he added.
Karat said large swathes of land have been accumulated by the Maytas group of companies all over Andhra Pradesh and in some other states.
“Some of the land dealings are obviously irregular and are violative of the law. One such instance is the allotment of 50 acres of government land in Visakhapatnam district to Satyam,” he said.
In December 2008, he said, the former secretary E.A.S. Sharma had written to the state authorities regarding the violation of the Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority’s master plan in handing over the land.
In his letter, Karat also enclosed a copy of the secretary of the district committee of the CPI-M to the collector on how the land has been occupied by Satyam.
He said even in the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project, Maytas company has been given prime land. “There are other such land deals and projects involving the Satyam-Maytas group of companies,” Karat said.