The Rest Of The Iceberg

Is political patronage still working to Ramalinga Raju's advantage; are central probe agencies being stalled?

How long will a complete forensic examination of Satyam's accounts take, weeks or months? There are 7 different agencies on the case now-who will eventually get the relevant documents?

Did Raju siphon off money to make real estate investments in group companies? How will investigators prove this? Can the Maytas group be delinked from Satyam's fate?

Was there insider trading? What is the role of investment banks and trustees of pledged shares in selling Satyam shares just before Raju's confession?

How implicated are Satyam's bankers-in giving unsecured loans and cooking the books?

PwC's statement says its audit isn't to be relied upon, but there's no clarity on their role. What'll happen to PwC?

Why have the US regulators and exchanges not got into action in this case?

Does Satyam indeed have the money to keep operations going? Why did the government suddenly become cautious about a bailout/credit assistance plan for Satyam?

Is there any truth to reports of foreign exchange violations, even money laundering, by Ramalinga Raju?

Will the Satyam fraud now put other companies under the probe scanner-or will it be business as usual?

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Outlook

• Like what was the Satyam chairman up to for nearly two days after his fraud came to light? Had he been given time to clean up the money trail?
  
• Why did he surrender before a DGP and not at a police station?
  
• Why was the CM insisting that Ramalinga had been arrested, while it was a surrender? Was he produced late before the magistrate to avoid the 5 pm cut-off time to enter a prison?
  
• Was there an effort by the state to deny sebi access to Ramalinga?
  
• Was evidence tampered with when the state police raided the offices and residence of Ramalinga?
  
• Was there police complicity, as is alleged, in the sudden vanishing of interim CEO Ram Mynampati?

Outlook

The BJP's Bandaru Dattatreya has also demanded a thorough probe into the "fake companies" in the various Maytas consortia. There is little clarity on whether the government will take over the two Maytas companies, as it is commonly believed that Satyam's money has been diverted here to buy land. The Maytas question is also important because the Maytas Infra-led consortia handled nearly 25 major government projects, all of them now in different stages of implementation. In many projects, the state has already released huge mobilisation advances and also sanctioned land. A senior bureaucrat in the irrigation department told Outlook they had begun assessing the risks involved and a report would be sent to the chief secretary soon. "The Maytas issue is being dealt with exclusively at the level of the chief secretary and CM," he says.

Land has been one of the central issues in the entire Satyam controversy, and already an arbitrary figure of nearly 6,000 acres has been granted to the Maytas companies. But in reality there is little clarity on the complex maze of Maytas' land holdings. Only one thing is clear, the major acquisitions never happened in Satyam's name.

Outlook contacted ex-MP and Congress spokesperson Tulsi Reddy and he had this to say by way of response: "The CM has already said he is ready for a CBI probe. Our party is prepared for such an investigation." Most Congressmen are very cautious about coming on record on the Satyam issue.

In fact, as the Satyam story develops, there is palpable nervousness in the Congress party with both the assembly and parliamentary elections due in a few months time. "The Congress high command is excessively dependent on YSR for both funds and seats to try and come back to the Centre. He is playing this to his advantage." In the south, the Congress prospects in AP seem much brighter than in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Kerala, anyway, is a small state. As a senior Congress leader admits, "With Satyam blowing up, there is a certain desperation to save the situation, at least till the elections get over."