The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has said its investigation into the Satyam case will take six more months to conclude. The discipline directorate of the Institute is looking into the alleged accountancy fraud perpetrated by Satyam. “In the next 6 months the Satyam case will be disposed of,” Uttam Prakash Agarwal, president of the institute said.
The case is at present before the disciplinary board of the institute which had asked Price Water house to respond to their queries by June 30 — which the auditing firm did. After completing its investigation, the board will send its recommendations to a separate disciplinary committee headed by Agarwal. “We are awaiting responses on the case. After which a meeting will be set up to discuss the particulars of the case,” he added.
ICAI has urged the ministry of corporate affairs to give the institute more powers in a bid to speed up disciplinary cases before it. According to Agarwal, since no definite deadline is fixed in the law for ongoing investigations, cases get unnecessarily delayed. “There should be no room for repeated adjournments, ” Agarwal said.
The institute is working on submitted the Satyam report to the minister of corporate affairs, Salman Khurshid on July 9, 2009. The report is expected to highlight the broad details of the fraud and could also look at ways to tighten accounting standards.
