Satyam Fraud- was the board sleeping!

SATYAM FRAUD

Was the board sleeping!

Satyam was ranked No.3 best company to work for Business Today; was awarded the top slot for corporate social responsiblity by Business World; won an International award the top slot for best financial disclosures procedures; and above all it won the Golden Peacock Award for excellence in Corporate Governanace (which has now been taken back by UK based World Council for Corporate Governance).

The question which comes in mind is that have been bestowed upon Satyam without proper checks, investigation and analysis of its records. If so, then who should be held responsible for all these and what should be held responsible for all these and what should be the penalty that be should be imposed! It is important because a common man takes decision whether of investment or any other mainly based on these reports and awards.

But the bigger, and more serious, issue pertains to the role of board of directors. It is bigger , more serious, because the directors are expected to act like judges and ask probing question to rein in the management and keep it on its toes. the Satyam fraud puts a question mark on the then nine member board of Satyam that included Krishna G. Paplepu (a professor at Harvard Business School), Vinod K. Dham (of Pentium fame), M. Rammohan Rao (Dean, India School of Business), T.R.Prasad (former cabinet secretary),etc. It forces one to think what these people were doing, if not sleeping, when this fraud was taking place. Or is there a basic flaw in the Corporate Governance systems being prevelent in India.