TNN

Hyderabad, Jan 22: In further startling revelations in the Satyam scam, the Rajus have confessed to having forged the company's fixed deposits documents, diverting as much as Rs 20 crore monthly from the IT company, holding more than 400 benami land transactions running into thousands of acres, and claiming that the strength of the company was 53,000 when it was actually only 40,000.

Appearing before the Nampally court hearing the CID's petition seeking further police custody of former Satyam chief B Ramalinga Raju and ex-CFO Vadlamani Srinivas here on Thursday afternoon, CID's public prosecutor K Ajay Kumar told the magistrate that the Rajus have confessed to forging all the FD documents that have been deposited in various documents.

"We need to establish as to who had committed the forgery. Hence, we need further custody of Raju and Srinivas," the public prosecutor argued.

The public prosecutor said Rs 1,250 crore at the rate of Rs 20 crore per month was siphoned by Raju over a period of many years.

The diversion of the funds,was done mainly through Ramalinga Raju's brother Suryanarayana Raju and his mother Appalanarasimha.

In all, there were over 400 'benami' land deals running into several thousands of acres. Of these, the maximum were in Ranga Reddy district and were purchased through Akula Rajaiah, a well known real estate broker in the district. The hearing on the petition is still continuing.

The public prosecutor also said the company had 40,000 employees, as against 53,000 maintained by Saytam.

There were reports earlier that the actual number of employees working for Satyam could be much lower than the 53,000 that Satyam has maintained so far, almost by as much as 15-20%, said a person familiar with the investigations.

The Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO) thinks this route could have been used by promoters to divert large sums of money as salaries to non-existent employees.

Meanwhile, the Satyam board is meeting here to discuss ways to secure working capital, appointment of the CEO, CFO and merchant bankers to find a strategic investor for the company.

Deepak Parekh, director on the board, said the company is convincing its international clients, who are in a mood to switch over to competitors. While the board is engaged in discussions with a number of banks and institutional investors to source working capital, it has already pledged some of its receivable to secure funding. As a first step, the sales team has been asked to recover the receivables as soon as possible, Parekh said.