Satyam Computer Services, the Indian IT company neck-deep in a corruption scandal that has shocked the country, has announced that its chief delivery officer AS Murthy will become its new CEO.

Murthy has worked for Satyam for 15 years, mainly in the human resources department. Reports claim he was a close friend of disgraced former CEO B Ramalinga Raju, but also that unlike some other Raju acolytes, his reputation has survived the revelations of the last month.

Murthy sold 40,000 shares shortly before the scandal broke, but a company spokesman denied that there was any connection. "He had sold those shares because of personal reasons and he did not know anything about [the fraud]. None of us knew about it,” he told Reuters.

The latest of many bizarre revelations to emerge from the Satyam scandal is that Raju has amassed a collection of more than 1,000 designer suits, 321 pairs of shoes and a telescope worth £140,000.