Sansani Khabar - Maano Ya Na Maano

There could not have a worse way to be begin the year. It was a rude shock as Mr. Ramalingam Raju broke the confidence and trust of thousands of investors, clients, employees and India Shining enthusiasts. Forty eight hours post his resignation, everybody is still in a state of complete disbelief. There are plenty of questions unanswered:
· How was something as obvious and straightforward an asset as Cash & Bank Balance tampered with?
· How did PWC miss something as obvious as this and for a continued time period?
· Why was there a need for overstating profits? It had reasonable good set of clients, a healthy business, no known lawsuits / delivery issues other than World Bank.
· How did the metrics tie up so intricately? All the metrics from People count, Utilization, Hiring numbers, Rates and Revenues – were they all cooked up? That entails the involvement of a large organization in the fraud
· The fact that fraud has been sustained over several years precludes the involvement of many…how did this escape the eyes of so many employees?
· RBI rules warrant collection of debt within 180 days – If there was no cash collected how was the statutory obligation met?
If this was a Bollywood potboiler we would all have laughed it off as a mindless script (Bunty aur Babli), but the sad part is it isn’t! As rumors of employees having to o without pay for 2 months, sacking of 10000 employees, exit of strategic customers and the CFO’s possible attempt to suicide are doing rounds it will require a lot of gumption in the employees, industry, ICAI and the government to restore the pride of India Inc. This calls for serious and more importantly quick action against Mr Raju & gang and PWC. They should pay for all the harassment the innocent employees have undergone, if not by money by spending the rest of their lives in shame.