Mumbai, May 3 :    Mumbai, May 3:  New firm dwarfs PwC in India Ernst & Young today said it was taking all partners and employees of Arthur Andersen India in its fold, spawning the largest accounting firm in the country. According to a joint statement issued this evening, Bobby Parikh, Andersen's country managing partner, will be the new firm's chief executive officer. Kashi N. Memani will serve as its chairman and country managing partner. Ernst & Young will absorb all Andersen India employees, except the 140 individuals who work for its consulting arm, Parikh said. The announcement, about a relationship cautiously being described as a tie-up, was made by the top-brass of both accounting companies at joint press conference here today. Senior officials laboured to remove the obvious perception that it is a merger or an acquisition. The coyness could be the result of a circumspect Ernst & Young brass trying to avert the possible fallout of Andersen's legal problems in the Enron case on the combined entity. Andersen's role in the fall of the Houston-based energy giant is still being probed in the US. The Indian partners and employees of the beleaguered Arthur Andersen will leave behind the Andersen name and join E&Y to create the biggest professional services firm that could dwarf PricewaterhouseCoopers as the leading accounting and audit house. 'It will create the leading professional services firm in India, with over 60 partners, over 2,000 employees and an enviable client base,' the firms said in their joint statement. Ernst & Young snapped up Andersen's operations in more than 40 countries since the Chicago-based Big Five accounting and consulting major began to disintegrate under the weight of the implosion at Enron. Andersen goes on trial next week for obstructing justice by allegedly destroying thousands of records relating to its auditing of Enron, which became the biggest US corporate house to go file for bankruptcy last December. As its image took a beating, Andersen lost more than 200 key clients abroad, forcing many of its overseas units to stay float through mergers or buyouts. In India, Wockhardt, a leading pharmaceutical company, became the first company to dump Andersen for another audit firm. However, Paul Ostling, Ernst & Young Global executive partner, said 40 per cent of companies that had fired Andersen world-wide signed up with Ernst & Young. On being asked about redundancies, Ostling said the healthy growth recorded by the two companies would keep layoffs away. 'Revenues of both firms had been growing at the rate of 20 to 40 per cent a year,' Ostling said. Discussions about the future of Andersen's consulting unit are under way, Parikh said, hinting that an announcement to the effect could be days away.