Govt directors job done in Satyam; time to check out

New Delhi, June 10 (PTI) The Indian government Wednesday
said the directors it nominated to run scam-hit Satyam
Computer are ready to check out after what it called a job
well done.

"Our job is done. I think they can now be phased out...
we can take credit for what we have done and we will give
credit to them for what they have done," India's Corporate
Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed told PTI when asked if the
directors would be recalled now.

Satyam posted robust earnings for the October-December
quarter and had a profit of Rs 56 crore in the January-
February period.

"It is for the board to decide (on when to send the
directors back)," Khursheed said.

Satyam Computer, which was till late last year ranked
India's fourth largest software exporter, began showing signs
of trouble in December 2008 when the company made a desperate
but failed attempt to acquire two non-IT firms promoted by the
kin of its founder Ramalinga Raju.

Less than a month later, Raju wrote to the Satyam board
saying he had been cooking the books for many years, falsified
profits and created fictitious assets.

"It is like riding a tiger and not knowing how to get off
without being eaten," wrote Raju, now in jail awaiting trial.

The government lost no time in nominating IT wizard Kiran
Karnik, banker Deepak Parekh and former regulator C Achuthan
to take the reins of the company, on which the lives of nearly
50,000 employees dependend then.

Other government nominees included Confederation of
Indian Industry (CII) chief mentor Tarun Das and former
Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) President T
M Manoharan.

The nominee directors, Khursheed certified, have been
working very closely and in partnership with the government
for reviving Satyam.

The directors, after taking charge, first went about
reassuring clients and the company's commitments to see
through contracts, although many including the World Bank and
UN blacklisted the firm that was at the centre of India's
largest (over Rs 10,000 crore) accounting fraud.

It was followed by arranging funds for covering
operational costs. After restoring a semblance of normalcy,
the directors started scouting for a new owner, even as the
accounts of the company was being restated.

In April, Tech Mahindra had acquired a controlling stake
in Satyam, outbidding others in the race, valuing the software
exporter at Rs 5,800 crore.

The Company Law Board (CLB), following sale of the
company to Tech Mahindra, allowed the new owner to appoint
four directors on Satyam board.

Earlier Karnik had said, "We have finished out task and
now we should move out... We were appointed by the government
to do a certain job. The company has now done well... it
survived, it got a new owner. We should be out of it". PTI