Satyam Scandal JSA tries hard to get PwC to cross-examine the Rajus

India’s regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has refused PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to cross-examine Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju and Vadlamani Srinivas, involved in the Satyam scandal..India’s regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has refused PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to cross-examine Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju and Vadlamani Srinivas, involved in the Satyam scandal..SEBI had sent out show cause notices to the auditors involved, but somehow they always found reasons to defer or delay the proceedings. The last hearing was set for 27 November but the noticees (PW offices of Bangalore, Kolkata, New Delhi, Chennai; Lovelock & Lewes offices in Hyderabad, Mumbai; and Dalal & Shah offices in Ahmedabad, Mumbai) filed two applications (Notice 1 and Notice 2) seeking cross examination of various persons including the Raju brothers and PwC auditor Vadlamani Srinivas..PwC was represented by Senior Advocates Janak D. Dwarkadas, Navroz H. Seervai and Shyam Mehta who were briefed by Partners Somesekhar Sundaresan and Farhad Sorebjee along with Senior Associate Zerick Dastur and Associates Khursheed Vajifdar and Prerna Arora. PwC also had its in-house Partners Sharmila A. Karve, Anuradha Tuli and M. S. Gupta representing along side of JSA..SEBI was represented by Advocate Shiraz Rustomjee, Executive Director (Legal) J. R. Ranganayakulu and Dr. Pradnya Saravade..First set of notice (Notice 1) included cross examination of Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, Vadlamani Srinivas and G. Ramakrishna for which the SEBI in its order held that it does not find that a case has been made out for cross-examination of Ramalinga Raju. In the case of Rama Raju and Vadlamani Srinivas just because a person is a co-accused in a criminal trial does not, ipso facto, mean that he should be produced for cross examination in the present proceedings. For G. Ramakrishna it was found that a case has been made out for cross-examination..Price Waterhouse got involved when PW- Bangalore, partnership of Pricewaterhouse Lovelock & Lewes (PW-Bangalore) was hauled up since they were the auditors to Satyam. Bar & Bench previously reported PwC has been consistently maintaining during investigations that their auditing partner in Bangalore, Lovelock & Lewes are the auditors to the Satyam scandal and not PwC. The auditing fee which was deposited in the name of Pricewaterhouse, Bangalore, was later transferred into the account of Lovelock & Lewes and the jailed Partners Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri withdrew the money from the Lovelock & Lewes account..Previously Satyam’s Auditor Srinivas Talluri was granted bail in February this year and Satyam’s former Chairman Ramalinga Raju was granted bail in August, to have his bail rejected by the Supreme Court in October this year..A copy of the SEBI order is available here