The economic offences wing of the CBI and the enforcement directorate (ED) will look into the possible siphoning of money by Satyam promoter B Ramalinga Raju into offshore accounts.

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) submitted to the government last week a 14,000-page report on its investigation into Satyam. SFIO believes that the Rajus hold at least 11 accounts in the Jersey Channel islands and British Virgin islands.

CBI and ED will also see if the company’s chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas had a role in this.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh, briefed on the report by cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar and company affairs secretary Anurag Goel, asked that the Rajus’ political nexus that might have helped in perpetrating the Satyam fraud, be also looked into.

Financial Chronicle first reported on January 13 about these offshore numbered accounts managed by the Mauritius- based Lakeview Investments.

The money from at least two Satyam land deals is believed to have gone into these accounts. The Rajus had raised the money by pledging Satyam shares held by the family holding company, SRSR Holdings.

The SFIO report gave a clean chit to the then four independent directors of Satyam. It concluded that Price Waterhouse as auditor had connived with the Rajus in manipulating the company’s books. The report said “the auditors kept silent despite knowing about the failure of IT firm’s audit system in 2007”.

No official comment was available from Price Waterhouse. Its executive director In New Delhi, Vivek Mehra, could not be contacted.

Price Waterhouse’s position, enunciated earlier, was that it was a victim of the fraud, that it had done no wrong, followed all standard practices and relied on information given by the Satyam management.

The SFIO report specifically mentioned two Price Waterhouse auditors -- S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas – as guilty of ‘active connivance’ with the promoters. Both knew of the audit failure through a report generated by Satyam’s own systems department in 2007. The systems report was not placed before the company’s audit committee.

SFIO pointed to fake invoices, bills, receipts and duplicate bank deposit certificates, which the auditors repeatedly certified as correct.

SFIO concluded that Raju had kept the independent directors in the dark. The office questioned Vinod Dham, Manglam Srinivasan, K G Palepu and T R Prasad and found that they had no knowledge of accounts manipulation.

The SFIO report also cleared the then whole-time director and senior executive, Ram Mynampati, of blame and said there was no evidence to link him to the scam.

The role of the independent directors came under scrutiny after the Rajus claimed that the Satyam board’s decision to acquire two family-promoted firms, Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties, was unanimous.

The deal did not go through as investors and other stakeholders took strong exception to the plan.

Prasad had said in January that he and other independent directors had supported the family proposal on “the explicit condition that the acquisitions be based on valuation derived from notifications of regulators and the government”. Prasad had also cited the threat of a hostile takeover of Satyam as another reason for his support.

Several agencies have been probing the Saytam fraud. The next report – after SFIO’s – is expected from the registrar of companies (RoC) in a fortnight.