A high-level team from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) met the head honchos of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services Ltd (now, Tech Mahindra Satyam) on Thursday.
“The SEC team comprised five members, besides the company’s lawyers, Lawrence Graham LLP. Officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Indian capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) too were part of the delegation, who interacted with Mahindra Satyam’s Executive Vice-Chairman Vineet Nayyar, its Chief Executive Officer C P Gurnani and the company’s finance team,” a source said.
The source further added that the SEC team was on a two-day visit to Hyderabad. “Consulting firms Deloitte and KPMG and lawyers Amarchand Mangaldas were part of the interaction. We, however, don’t know the content of the discussions,” the source said.
“CBI director Ashwini Kumar is also likely to meet the SEC team at Satyam headquarters on Friday. Some senior officials from Sebi would also join the CBI and SEC officials,” he added.
This is the SEC team’s second meeting with Satyam officials in the last five months, the first being in February 2009, when the US investors’ watchdog met the government-appointed board of Satyam to assess the status of the IT outsourcing company, as several class action suits were filed by US-based investors.
Meanwhile, the counsel for Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju today filed a petition in the High Court here, asking it to quash the order of the lower court which allowed the CBI to conduct a lie detector test (polygraph test) and brain mapping (F300 testing) on Raju and two others.
They contended that the test violated fundamental rights of the accused and would subject them to pressure. The confessions , anyway were not admissible in court.