IDBI has already requested the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), which appointed the development financial institution as an operating agency for Dunlop, a senior Mumbai-based IDBI official said on condition of anonymity.

IDBI preferred BIFR to appoint an independent audit firm, the official said, so that it could carry out de novo inspection of Dunlop's books of accounts, he said.

This, he said, was required because bankers to the company had raised objections to the statutory audits of the company, in addition to a number of MPs who had also raised the issue in the Parliament.

Dunlop India was referred to BIFR by the management early this year stating that the company had turned sick and there had been a complete erosion of its net worth.

Subsequently, BIFR appointed IDBI to study Dunlop'saccounts, and precisely to inspect two entries relating to sale of property and provisioning.

The official, IDBI was only asked to inspect the two entries, and nothing else. The official maintained that BIFR asked IDBI to state whether the two entries were made by Dunlop were fictitious or not.

Dunlop's admission as a sick company by BIFR was not purely based on IDBI's report, he said.

The IDBI official pointed out that unless BIFR allowed an investigative audit of Dunlop's books of accounts, it would not be possible for IDBI to prepare a revival package for the company.

On BIFR's admission of Dunlop as a sick unit, IDBI was appointed as an operating agency for the company and to prepare a revival package for it. At the same time, BIFR had also rejected the management revival plan, which hinged on property sale and rights issue.

When asked whether the IDBI revival package would be influenced by the one prepared by the company management, the official responded "we do not toe anybody'sline".

Although IDBI's financial involvement with Dunlop was zero, the financial institution was already peeved with the Dunlop issue.

The bankers had also stopped financing working capital requirements of Dunlop due to non-compliance on the part of the management in terms of providing information about the company. Dunlop's two plants in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were under lock-out since November 1997.