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Sebi team ready to begin Satyam probe

January 8, 2009

A special team formed by the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India to probe the Satyam scam reached Hyderabad on Thursday.

The committee, headed by Sebi's southern region general manager, A Sunil Kumar, has been asked to submit the report to the Sebi at the earliest, a senior Sebi official told PTI in Mumbai.

"They have left for Hyderabad to start the investigation process," the official said.

Sebi formed the special team following the confession by the IT-major's chairman B Ramalinga Raju on Wednesday of gross manipulations in the company's balance sheets in the past several years.

Shares of Satyam had slumped to a 10-year low on Wednesday following the developments in the company.

Sebi chairman C B Bhave had on Wednesday termed the developments in India's fourth largest IT company as an event of "horrifying magnitude" and said the regulator would take all steps in the matter.

The investigation, Sebi said, will ascertain whether any provision of the Act or regulation has been violated.

"We are in touch with Ministry of Corporate Affairs. We are also in discussion with them as to what steps need to be taken from the perspective of power they have under the law and Sebi has under the law," Bhave said.

Announcing the probe, the market watchdog had said that the investigation will go into the affairs relating to buying, selling or dealing in the shares of Satyam Computer Services and submit the report to the board at the earliest.

The investigating authority has been armed with power under various Sections of Sebi Act to carry out the probe, Sebi said.

Text: PTI

Image: Chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India, C B Bhave speaks during a news conference. | Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Also read: Satyam: India's claim to Ponzi fame

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