Faking news: Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju appointed as India’s new CAG

A week after he was released on bail, Satyam Computers founder Ramalinga Raju has been appointed as India’s comptroller and auditor general. Raju will take over as the new CAG with immediate effect and review all the earlier reports of outgoing CAG Vinod Rai.

“We need someone like Sri Ramalinga Raju as CAG,” union minister Kapil Sibal announced. “Raju could create wealth where none existed. He could bring cash in excess of what could have been counted. He could make Satyam earn interests on NPAs, and he could write off huge liabilities. Such acumen and ability is not to be found easily in men, and India could benefit from his experiences in these troubled times.”

It should be noted that Raju, former chairman, Satyam Computers, has confessed to doing such financial and accounting jugglery in January 2009, after which he resigned and was subsequently arrested on charges of fraud.

Sibal, who has often argued that the CAG had erred in calculating the losses due to the 2G spectrum allocation process, claimed that Raju would prove to be a better CAG.

“People laughed at my zero-loss theory, but I’m sure the new CAG can show that actually the government of India benefited from the 2G spectrum scam,” he hoped.

Within an hour of his appointment, Raju assumed office and asked for all the CAG reports related to the 2G scam, CWG scam, Adarsh scam, etc to be tabled before him. Raju did not take any oath of secrecy or transparency on his appointment, as this process was deemed to be irrelevant.

The stock markets reacted positively and the Sensex jumped over 420 points as soon as news of Raju’s new role broke. Shares of telecom and real estate companies were the biggest gainers as stocks continued their upward trend the whole day.

“Ramalinga can kill the Ravana of inflation with his divine prowess,” said stock broker Harshad Maytas, welcoming the development. “I guess the UPA government has finally taken a market-friendly decision.”

Maytas hoped that Raju would soon be roped in for a bigger role in corporate affairs.

There were some disapproving voices too in the corporate world, who thought that Raju was guilty of unfair practices and a symbol of bad corporate governance. However, no one was willing to comment on the record as they feared Congress leader Digvijay Singh would raise question marks over their own practices and ethical behavior.

Rahul Roushan thinks he can make some sense through nonsense. He attempts the same through his news satire website www.fakingnews.com