ICAI bars 2 auditors linked with Satyam scam for life
Quality Times
News & Views Mularam, as he makes way for his push cart amid the chaos of cows, Boleros, bikes and open drains on Barmer's Station Road.
Two auditors involved in the multi-croreSatyam fraud have been barrred from attesting financial statements for life, apart from facing a financial penalty, by auditing regulator Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). However, inquiry against top two audit partners of Price Waterhouse - S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri - is yet to come to a conclusion. Chintapatla Ravindranath and P Siva Prasad - who worked for Lovelock & Lewes (an affiliate of Pricewaterhouse India) - were audit managers who performed the statutory financial audit of Satyam Computers between April 2001 to September 2008 on behalf of Pricewaterhouse India. The duo's names have been removed from the members' register of ICAI permanently, which means they cannot attest financial statements for life. Also they have been slapped with a financial penalty of Rs 5 lakh each, which is the maximum penalty permissible under law. Sources say this is perhaps the first time when the action involves both permanent de-rostering and also a financial penalty. The CA institute's disciplinary committee had met on Monday to consider the matter. The committee, that had also heard the accused, found "serious gross negligence" on the part of the two CAs in the discharge of their duties as audit team members. Siva Prasad had conducted the audit from April 2001 to March 2005, while Ravindranath had performed it from April 2005 to September 2008. Both were employed with Lovelock & Lewes, Kolkata, and deputed to carry out the audit in the name of Price Waterhouse, Bangalore. The hearing in the matter of other respondents who were heading the team - Gopalakrishnan and Talluri - and Satyam's ex-CFO V Srinivas are yet to be concluded. The same is the position in the case against VS Prabhakara Gupta, ex-internal audit head of Satyam. Sources said the delay was because they were in judicial custody for a long time and thus could not be questioned. Also, some of them had gone to court challenging ICAI's disciplinary proceedings against them. ICAI now plans to resume disciplinary proceedings against all the other accused auditors this month, sources said. However, it will have to wait to do the same against Gupta who has got a stay from the Andhra Pradesh High Court. Overnight crorepatis sprout in Barmer sands Mularam has learnt quickly how to fend off the pushy and persistent insurance agents. But his worries don't end there. Becoming an overnight crorepati hasn't been easy for this street vendor. His ancestral house amid the sprawling Bajra fields stretching across 20 acres, where he and his generations lived for decades, will be razed for industrial use in six months or so. His family has already received a little more than Rs 1 crore for around 40 bighas. "We have become ghosts - no place to live. Nobody understands this, everybody is curious about my money," says an irritated
Such grumblings, though not rare, are far and few. Farming is a dead-end job in this sandy, and barren backwaters of Rajasthan. People here own land in hundreds of acres and usually wait four years to have a Bajra crop like this year, given the harsh topography of the Thar desert. Like water, prosperity has no address in this arid, land-locked region. Of late, the sands seem to be shifting here as well. The doublebarrel bang from Cairn India andJSW Energy has jolted the sleepy town out of its deep slumber, creating around 750 crorepatis out of people like Mularam, most of who don't have bank accounts, education and access to water and electricity. Before Cairn India found oil, the value of land, sort of, depended on the buyer's benevolence, fetching around Rs 10,000 per acre. But that's history now after the discovery of oil reserves. The British oil company has acquired around 3,000 acres for drilling and development of the fields, coughing up rates as high as Rs 4 lakh per acre. JSW Energy, which is half way through its 1,080 megawatt power plant, has acquired about 17,000 acres. Most of land is being used to mine lignite to fire up the plant. The company has put Rs 1,000 crore in the hands of the farmers, stumping up close to Rs 7 lakh per acre. Some of this instant money has found its way into the realty market, jacking up housing prices by more than 10 times in Barmer town in last three years. While Mularam is still looking for cheap land, many who sold at Rs 4 lakh per acre, have bought equal quantity elsewhere in the region at much cheaper rates, leaving them with enough cash and freedom to splurge on SUVs, TVs, ACs refrigerators, washing machines, and trips to Goa. Mahindra and Mahindra says Rajasthan is the fourth largest market for its Bolero in country. It is close to setting up a dealership outlet, a first for any carmaker in Barmer. The district transport officer Anup Choudhary says car sales have doubled in last three years from 766 to 1423 units with Bolero, Scorpio, and Innova leading the charge. Some even travel as far as Haryana, Delhi, Ahmedabad to drive home a vehicle on the same day. Many prefer to pay the entire cost at one-go. Banks have also jumped on to the bandwagon. Now, almost all lenders have set up shops. Even insurance agents have had a share of the pie. LIC agent Devendra Kumar says that a farmer, who got Rs 7 crore, made a one-time payment of Rs 1 crore for the insurance of his family members. Barmer, which had only one hotel in 2005, is now home to 20 properties. More are under construction. A resort on the outskirts is waiting in the wings. The boom is on the boil despite a couple of hotels, which were bursting at seams a year ago, closed their doors after 15,000 workers of L&T, which was constructing Cairn India's facility, left the town. What is preventing a burst is the prospect of a refinery.
Quality Times January 2012
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