Price Waterhouse auditors deny their role in Satyam fraud

Bangalore: Price Waterhouse said the two partners, S. Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri, had cooperated with investigators and said it was concerned they remained in custody after their arrests last month. They also told the special court going into the scam that the prosecution failed to produce a single paper to show they committed any of the offences for which they were sought to be charged.

They informed the court through their senior counsel A. Raghunathan that they believed all was true and fair with the accounts of the company until the scam broke out. They were not expected to function as detectives to find out whether the company committed a crime. The council asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) not to 'unnecessarily' invite the court to frame charges against the duo when there was no ground.

Satyam, a provider of software and back-office outsourcing services, has been battling for survival since Ramalinga Raju resigned as chairman on Jan. 7, revealing profits had been overstated for years and that $1 billion of cash and bank balances on the company's books did not exist. Earlier, former Satyam chairman B. Ramalinga Raju marked his attendance for the second day after he was released on bail by the High Court and left the court. He told media persons that he was relieved at getting the bail but refused to discuss more stating that the matter was sub judice.