Four agencies scramble to grill Raju as probe crawls

Meanwhile,Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy has said that he won’t hesitate to seek a CBI inquiry if required.

What is known about the fraud so far is what Raju said in his own five-page confessional letter to the board of directors and Sebi. The rest came from the EOW which could interrogate him for 24 hours before he was sent in judicial custody.

The Sebi team arrived in Hyderabad on January 8,a day after Raju sent his confessional letter and resigned,and is still waiting to interrogate him. Sebi’s petition seeking permission for interrogation was posted for hearing for January 16 but has been adjourned to January 19. The team will now have to wait out the weekend.

The CID’s custody petition was also taken up on Friday with Ramalinga Raju’s lawyers opposing it on the ground that their client was unwell. According to his lawyer Bharat Kumar,Sebi has no power to question a person who is in custody. Bharat Kumar argued that he feared his client would be tortured in police custody. The order has been reserved for Saturday.

So Sebi is jostling with the CID to get a chance to record  Raju’s statement. P C Reddy,Sebi’s lawyer,said on Friday that arguments were over and the court would give an order on Monday. “Arguments were held today on Sebi’s petition as well as Raju’s bail plea and the CID’s remand petition. Due to the court vacation in between,everything has got delayed,” Reddy said.

The SFIO of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs,which has a 16-member team stationed in Hyderabad,has not been able to make much progress as the CID had little more than the confessions of Raju and Srinivas to share with them. “We have not able to find a common platform where all agencies can share information,” an official said.

The SFIO was beaten by a few hours by the CID which confiscated all documents,laptops,computers and files from Satyam’s offices. The CID also raided Satyam’s auditors PriceWaterhouseCoopers and took away documents and data related to Satyam. “We cannot force the CID to share the information with us. We need proper coordination. It would be a pity if,instead of probing Raju,the investigating agencies are at each other’s throats,” an officer said.

The Inspector General of EOW,CID,VSK Kaumudi,says unless they get Raju’s custody and interrogate him,there is not much to share with other agencies. “Once we interrogate Raju and trace back how and why this intricate fraud began and who all are involved,we can share (that) with other agencies,” Kaumudi says. Until then Raju and his CFO,who were arrested on January 10,will cool their heels in a cell in the Chanchalguda Jail.