'Satyam scam started with adjustment of Rs 10cr'

It all started as an adjustment of Rs 10 crore around 5-6 years ago and the malpractice continued quarter after quarter before the accounting fraud at Satyam (SATYAM.BO : 103.35 +0.7) Computer assumed the proportions of country's biggest ever corporate scam involving thousands of crore.

The latest bit of information was revealed by the accounting regulator ICAI which questioned the Satyam's former CFO V Srinivas and two sacked auditors of Pricewaterhouse-Bangalore which audited Satyam's accounts.

"The CFO told us the scam started 5-6 years ago with a small adjustment of Rs 10 crore, which they then inflated to Rs 200 crore. This continued quarter after quarter and year after year and by the second quarter of 2008 had attained unmanageable proportions," Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) President Uttam Prakash Agarwal said in Mumbai.

Srinivas also informed ICAI that the fraud had been "masterminded" by Satyam's founder and former chairman B Ramalinga Raju, his younger brother company's former managing director B Rama Raju, the ICAI President said.

Srinivas and the two former Price Waterhouse auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas yesterday questioned by Agarwal and Shantilal Daga, a member of the high-powered ICAI committee investigating the Satyam case, at the Chanchalguda Central Prison in Hyderabad.