Swamy to ED: Probe Arthur Andersen officers who helped Mallya cook books

[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]B[/dropcap]JP leader Subramanian Swamy on Friday petitioned the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to probe the individuals who assisted Vijay Mallya in preparing balance sheets and dressing it up to defraud banks. In a notice to ED Director Karnal Singh, Swamy claimed that the Mumbai-based investment brokers owned by global auditing firm Arthur Andersen (since renamed as Accenture) prepared accounts that were fake for Mallya’s business organizations in order to deceive the banks.

Swamy alleged that Khanna and Wadhwa, the former Indian agents of Andersen (Accenture), of forgery and re-structuring of fiscal information of Mallya businesses. “Wadhwa also assisted in setting up the Diageo deal along with a few rounds of finding financing for Kingfisher Airlines.”

“Sid Khanna was carefully cultivated by Mallya and afterwards as State Head of Arthur Andersen, published a few enthusiastic reviews which assisted Mallya re-structure his way from the primary problem with public-sector banks,” quipped Swamy, encouraging a probe to the couple’s part in supporting Mallya cheat banks.

[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]N[/dropcap]ot much is known of Sid Khanna in the recent years. The last he was written up about was in the floundering Venture Capital firm, India Equity Partners (IEP). This Economic Times article wrote about the difficulties IEP was facing, raising a second round of $500 million despite making several pitches.

Ashok Wadhwa was in the news recently as a jurist in the panel that was part of the oldest “Best bank award” in India.

If the ED does take up the pursuit of these two officers of an erstwhile accounting firm, it would be rare event. How quickly the department is going to bring closure to this investigation will determine how Public Sector (PSU) Banks will approach resolution of other Non-Performing Assets (NPA) that they have on their books. For more information on PSU Banks and their NPAs, watch this engaging video by Prof. R Vaidyanthan.