The Danube conference room at the “School of Learning” in Satyam’s sparkling Hyderabad campus is normally a place where the software group’s senior management try to imbue leadership qualities in its most promising staff.

On Thursday, however, Satyam’s senior managers had their own values tested as they tried to explain in heated exchanges with sceptical journalists how they planned to handle the $1bn-plus scandal gripping India’s fourth-largest computer services group.