Govt not to relook at arrested CLB member's probe

Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid today said that R Vasudevan who was caught red handed by the CBI accepting bribe yesterday was only involved in preliminary stages of the Satyam investigation and hence there is no need to relook at any of the previous investigation done by him, reports CNBC-TV18's Pranshu Sikka.

Here is a verbatim transcript of his comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Things now are really settling down after yesterday's high voltage drama at the Company Law Board (CLB). I was there at the ministry today as well at the CLB, really a state of shock which is being expressed by most of the officers who have worked with Vasudevan and said that it was really not expected that this would come to Vasudevan himself.

But on the factual front, Vasudevan and Manoj Banthia, who is the company secretary who is alleged to have bribed Vasudevan have both been sent to a six day police custody by a sessions court. Besides that, on the other front he was not only now acting as a chairman of CLB but previously as Director of Investigations also he was looking after very significant cases like Satyam, and the Sesa merger case.

I asked the minister whether he was jittery about all the investigations that have taken place under his tenure. He said there is no case to worry, this was a one-off case and he also expressed confidence that the other officers who were working along with him, the team which was in place to ensure that there were many checkpoints that an investigation happens in a free and fair manner were very much in place. This was just a one-off case where one of the corporates had asked a favour to settle a case and Vasudevan unfortunately had been caught taking bribe.

Salman Khurshid, Corporate Affairs Minister said,"The investigations were taken up and then completed by the SFIO and I don't think we have any reasons to worry about."