Satyam auditor, CFO found ‘guilty’

HYDERABAD: Nearly three years after the Satyam scam broke out, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has finally found Vadlamani Srinivas, erstwhile chief financial officer (CFO) of Satyam Computers, and Talluri Srinivas, former partner of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), then statutory auditors of Satyam, guilty of professional misconduct.
According to G Ramaswamy, president, ICAI, while Vadlamani was found guilty of not conducting proper due diligence, Talluri was held guilty for not complying with professional standards.
“The high powered disciplinary committee found both Vadlamani and Talluri guilty of professional misconduct. We will give them a final opportunity to defend themselves after which a final hearing will be held this month and the punishment determined,” he explained.
Out of the total six auditors under the ICAI scanner for the Satyam scam, the role of former Satyam internal auditor Prabhakar Gupta and S Gopalakrishnan, former partner of PWC, is still under scrutiny.
It was only last month that ICAI barred two chartered accountants of Lovelock & Lewes -- Pulavarthi Siva Prasad and Chintapatla Ravindernath, imposed a Rs 5 lakh penalty each and ordered striking off their names from the register of members permanently after they were found to have been grossly negligent in carrying out the statutory audit of Satyam from 2001 to 2008.