In the wake of the Satyam scandal, one of India’s leading experts has predicted that the the country will need more than 6,000 new forensic accountants to strengthen due diligence procedures.
Mayur Joshi, founder and CEO of Indiaforensic Consultancy Services, claims that the trade body of India’s IT industry Nasscom is planning to beef up due diligence accounting guidelines so that they would effectively “entrust the task of detecting and preventing the fraud to the forensic accountants”.
The Satyam scandal broke last month when its former chairman admitted that an accounting fraud thought to be worth up to £700m had taken place at the IT giant.
Major demand for forensic accountants is also expected from regulatory authorities such as the Indian Serious Fraud Investigation Office and Securities and Exchange Board of India, as their scrutiny of companies’ accounts becomes much stricter.