The sixth metropolitan magistrate at the Nampally court here on Wednesday dismissed the bail plea of Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju, his brother B Rama Raju and former Chief Financial Officer Srinivas Vadlamani.
The Raju brothers were arrested on January 9 and Vadlamani a day later in connection with the Rs 7,800-crore fraud in the company. They were sent to judicial custody till January 23. The police took the three into custody on January 18, which ended on Jan 23. Their judicial custody has been extended till February 6.
The bail petition of Ramalinga Raju and Vadlamani came up for hearing on Tuesday but the judge reserved the orders for today and pronounced it in the afternoon.
The court also posted the plea by the CID seeking a week's custody of SRSR General Manager Gopalakrishna Raju for Thursday. Public prosecutor argued that Gopalakrishna was hand-in-glove with Ramalinga Raju and that his custodial interrogation would bring to light several aspects that would have an impact on the small investors and shareholders. He said the police had recovered several land documents from Gopalakrishna Raju.
On Tuesday, defence counsel, represented by senior advocates D Prakash Reddy and Nalin Kumar, argued that the police and other investigating agencies had already seized documents from the offices of Satyam and residences of various witnesses. They said their clients would cooperate with the investigating agencies and abide by the conditions laid down by the court if granted bail.
Contending this, Ajay Kumar said the bail should not be granted in view of the gigantic proportion of the scam and its bearing on the investors. The accused had inflated the balance sheet figures and also shown Rs 3,300 crore fixed deposits when none existed.
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"The directors of the company are the custodians of the public money and therefore have a duty to protect the public investments. They were not entrusted to inflate the balance sheet and present a rosy picture of the company,'' he said, adding there was a breach of trust and that the accused were individually and jointly responsible for this. He argued that the directors and CFO were in the know of things in the company for 28 quarters.
Meanwhile, the police have seized several documents, computers, laptops, which will be presented to an expert for deciphering their content. Later in the day, defence counsel S Bharath Kumar said they would renew the bail plea in the same court first then move a higher court.