Satyam's founder could face lie-detector tests and "narco tests" that use barbituates to lower a subject's inhibitions in answering questions. Investigators believe founder B Ramalinga Raju and his brother are withholding vital information about the $1.5B accounting fraud they have admitted to perpetrating at Satyam over the past several years."We feel the Rajus are not sharing everything with us. It is a case of corporate fraud not conducted by an outsider but by the person who is the founder of the organization itself," said Aswini Kumar, director of India's Central Bureau of Intelligence, in a news story in the Hindustan Times.

As a results of those suspicions, Kumar said, the CBI has asked a court for permission to administer polygraph tests to the Raju brothers and to former Satyam CFO Vadlamani Srinivas "as we feel more evidence is required."

Pending the results of those lie-detector tests, Kumar said, the CBI might also seek court permission to drug Satyam founder Raju in an effort to extract the truth, the article said:

Asked if CBI will also apply for a narco test on Raju, Kumar said: "If everything comes alright in a polygraph test and we are satisfied that he is not hiding anything then we will not go for a narco analysis test. But if we feel that he is hiding anything then we will go for a narco test also."

Kumar said the ongoing investigation is uncovering evidence that the total of the fraud might exceed the original projection of $1.5B and approach $2B. The suspects have been charged with criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and falsification of accounts.

Amont the many reasons investigators are so eager to find out what the Rajus and Srinivas know is that progress in the hoped-for sale of the company is being delayed by class-action suits against the company, as my colleague Paul McDougall reported yesterday.