Hyderabad: Is B Ramalinga Raju being kept out of reach of central investigative teams? At least that is the way it appears to be going by the turn of events in the Satyam scam.
After dilly-dallying for almost three days, the State authorities showed urgency in taking the Rajus into their control and conducting investigations, which has put the central authorities in a fix now.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) was the first to start probe, but the arrest of the brothers has now severely hampered its efforts.
In fact, exactly a day before Sebi officials wanted Raju to depose, the state CID had taken Ramalinga Raju and Rama Raju into custody. Now Sebi is left with no option but to look for other methods to question Raju.
Similarly, at a time when the ministry of corporate affairs is in control of all records pertaining to Satyam, the state wants the Centre to hand over the case to CBI.
"There is an interesting game going on. It seems that the state government is determined to have the Rajus in its control or give them off to CBI, which will take its own time to probe the matter," a source in the know said.
In fact, the senior police officials concede the machinery they have is not well-trained to probe company matters or financial irregularities of this magnitude.
"The stock market transactions or balance sheet fudging are the issues that need specialists to probe. We have some officers who are good at economic offences or revenue intelligence. But, even after conducting a thorough probe, we cant book them since the laws for punishing such offences are under the Central Acts," a senior police official explained.
The inadequate legal framework for bringing to book white collar offences of the kind confessed to by Raju, the action of the state machinery is taking the other authorities by surprise.
"By taking the Satyam officials into custody, there will be a definite impact on the probe the other authorities were supposed to carry out. Even now these authorities can conduct the probe or question the executives, but it is a long process for, they need to get the courts approval for doing so," a source said.
The turn of events in the case were always proving to be challenging to the central authorities. It was the ministry of corporate affairs to have acted first on the case and announced that the registrar of companies would probe the matter.
The state government that time said that the issue relates to companies and the state had no role in it. Subsequently, after Raju made his confessions and agreed to have committed the fraud, the state insisted that there was no complaint for the state authorities to act.
Suddenly, with the Sebi team arriving, the state authorities started discussing on the matter.
By the time, the authorities were preparing a plan of action, the Sebi team wanted Raju to depose.
Instead of appearing before the team, Raju had sent his counsel to seek a days time for appearance on the grounds of ill health.
While the Sebi authorities were preparing to question Raju the next day, the CID moved in and arrested him.
"All the three bodies - ministry of corporate affairs, Serious Frauds Investigation Office and the SEBI - are caught now. It is very difficult to probe the matter with Raju remaining in the judicial custody and lodged in the jail," a ministry official said.
