Inspired by Sucheta Dalal
GT very recently submitted the forensic audit report of IL&FS Engineering and Construction Company Limited (IECCL) which has exposed scandals and internal collusion to conceal wrongdoing and losses a decade back from 2011-12.
Despite a new board of directors of senior retired bureaucrats for three years, crucial data re: company and business has not been shared with GT.
Erroneous, incomplete and inadequate data were provided. Bank statements not provided in 40 cases. Statements in 122 out of 163 accounts given.
The entire top management cabal of IL&FS, Ravi Parthasarathy, Hari Sankaran, Arun Saha, K Ramachand, Mukund Sapre (MD of IECCL), MD Khattar and key managerial personnel (KMPs), used external and personal emails for official communication, not made available to GT.
The report is based on 40% of available data with IECCL. Project related data is 80% of total costs incurred and formed a critical part of GT’s review but just 22% available and provided to GT. The key information was not available for any project. This provides assurance that information is complete and no comprehensive analysis of projects required.
GT has received 25%-30% of data and 22.5% pertaining to projects. Naveen Agarwal, CFO said all the available data has been provided. Surely, he couldn’t have done that without specific authorisation by the board of directors!
So who is protecting the former management of IL&FS which burnt up so much of public money? Remember, the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has appointed this board of directors, comprising largely retired bureaucrats to work in public interest to recover money owed to pension funds, government institutions, bond-holders and a large number of private entities.
They are: chairman Uday Kotak, CS Rajan, GC Chaturvedi, Srinivasan Natarajan, Nand Kishore and Malini Shankar (mainly retired IAS officers and a former comptroller and auditor general, while the chairman is a billionaire banker).
They are supported by a set of very expensive lawyers, consultants and advisers who have first claim to any recovery. GT is silent about whether it raised this issue with the board of directors, the new audit committee and chairman Uday Kotak.
But the report is quite explosive as it exposes the rotten dealings of the previous management headed by Ravi Parthasarathy (who presided over this massive conglomerate for 25 years and stepped down just before its payment issues erupted in the public domain) and his followers. The team loyal to this management and still employed by IL&FS group companies is determined to bury wrongdoing, to cover up its own role in the dubious dealing. But who will hold the new management accountable for failure to cooperate with GT’s forensic audit team?
Since GT has clearly been instructed (by the new board?) to submit the report with less than half the information it asked for, there appears to be a conspiracy to bury all that is inconvenient and protect those responsible for losses of over Rs 40,000 cr that may never be recovered.
To be continued