NEW DELHI - The perpetrator of the Rs.70-billion (Rs.7,000-crore/$1.43 billion) accounting fraud at Satyam Computer Services will not go scot-free, Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee said here Thursday.

'In the recent past, we have seen an unfortunate case, a failure which has attracted considerable attention,' Mukherjee said in his address at the 81st annual general meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

'We need to ensure that this one single aberration does not undermine either the standing and reputation of our IT industry or India's standing as an emerging trillion-dollar economy with the second highest growth rate among major developing countries,' he added.

'We will spare no effort in getting to the bottom of this terrible scam and will take whatever measures are necessary on the basis of the findings.'

Mukherjee, who is handling the finance portfolio while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recuperates from his heart bypass surgery, said the government had 'acted swiftly' and was 'doing everything in the domain of investigation to salvage the livelihood of thousands of employees and restore confidence among clients'.

'At the same time, it is important that corporates function strictly within the regulatory framework devised and apply the highest standards of ethics in all their working,' he said.

'This would be fully consistent with the norms of corporate best practices and social responsibility. In short, there should never be a repeat of this most unfortunate failure of corporate governance. I firmly believe that even a single such incident is one too many.'

Maintaining that India's IT industry was built on solid fundamentals, Mukherjee said: 'The adverse fallout of the misdoing in a single company cannot be allowed to cast its shadow on the entire Indian IT industry worth $60 billion or IT exports of around $40 billion.'