The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India yesterday for the second time extended the deadline given to four members of Price Waterhouse - Bangalore to respond to the show-cause notices issued in relation to the Rs7,000-crore Satyam Computer fraud case.

Addressing a conference in New Delhi, ICAI president Uttam Prakash Agarwal said the PW auditors had asked for ''reasonable and realistic time considering the volume of records''. The four Price Waterhouse accountants - P Shiva Prasad, C H Ravindranath, Srinivas Talluri and S Gopalakrishnan - have been given up to 2 April to reply to the show cause notices.

Former chief financial officer of Saytam Computer Services Vadlamani Srinivas has also been given till 9 April to respond to his show cause notice.

The ICAI had issued notices to members of PW-Bangalore in January. The auditors were asked to respond within 21 days. On a request by the PW auditors, the ICAI extended the time to reply to show-cause notices up to 2 March. The deadline for replying to showcause notices was extended again today.

Gopalakrishnan and Talluri were earlier unable to respond to the notice since they had been arrested on charges related to the case. Speaking then to The Indian Express, former ICAI president Ved Jain had said, ''It is up to ICAI's director (discipline) to decide how much time can be given to the auditors.''

Earlier, Price Waterhouse, the audit arm of international professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, had named the four Chartered Accountants as answerable for charges related to the corporate fraud.

Further, PW informed ICAI that only its Bangalore firm was answerable for the allegations. Its other two firms in Delhi and Kolkata were not auditors of Satyam Computer Services, the firm said in its reply to a notice sent by ICAI. There are seven PW firms registered in India.

On January 24, Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri were arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police for colluding with B Ramalinga Raju, founder of Satyam in fudging the company's accounts. Gopalakrishnan is a senior council member of ICAI, while Srinivas Talluri is a member of ICAI. Incidentally, ICAI can take action against members of ICAI but not against the firms.

In another development, ICAI has initiated disciplinary proceedings against Satyam former chief financial officer V Srinivas and senior vice president (internal audit cell of Satyam VS Prabhakara Gupta. "We are working on this on a fast track basis and would come out with a report in six months," Agarwal said.