The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday granted conditional bail to Satyam Computer Services Ltd founder B Ramalinga Raju, key accused in a multi-crore financial scam at the IT outsourcing company.
The Satyam founder is the last of ten accused in the case to obtain bail. The other accused were Ramalinga Raju’s brothers, Rama Raju and Suryanarayana Raju, former CFO Srinivas Vadlamani, PriceWaterhouse auditors Srinivas Talluri and S Goplakrishnan, former internal auditor Prabhakara Gupta and Satyam former employees G Ramakrishna, Venkatapathi Raju and Ch Srisailam.
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) DIG Lakshminarayana said the investigating agency would appeal against the bail in the Supreme Court. On July 20, the AP High Court granted bail to five accused, including former managing director Rama Raju. The two PW auditors, Gupta and Suryanarayana Raju, had secured bail earlier.
Ramalinga Raju, who is undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (Nims) here, has not attended court proceedings since the trial started in September 2009. On January 7 last year, Raju confessed to an accounting scam at Satyam, termed the biggest corporate fraud in the country. He and Rama Raju were arrested on January 9, 2009, by the Andhra Pradesh police.
The CBI, which subsequently probed the case, charged Raju under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
These include criminal conspiracy (Section 120B), breach of trust (409), cheating (420) and forgery (467, 468 and 471), falsification of records (477A) and causing disappearance of evidence (201). In his bail petition, Raju maintained that the charges levelled against him by the CBI were “baseless”. Besides, his petition argued, the charges pertained to “several entities and as such no liability can be fastened upon a single individual, particularly on the petitioner (Raju).”
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The CBI has so far filed three chargesheets accusing Raju and others of luring people to invest in the company’s shares by inflating the balance sheet. Raju was not charged with siphoning out funds in the original chargesheet. The CBI filed a 300-page first chargesheet in an additional chief metropolitan magistrate’s court here on April 7, 2009, along with a summary of the case facts and annexures. In all, it brought 22 trunkloads, containing 65,000 documents, to be submitted to the court. The investigating agency recorded 432 witnesses. Along with the second supplementary chargesheet, it had submitted an additional 55,000 documents after examining 301 more witnesses.
Speaking to the media after the court passed its order on Wednesday, Raju’s counsel, Bharat Kumar, said the Satyam founder had adhered to the law, cooperated with investigating agencies and would continue to do so. The counsel pleaded for bail for Raju on several counts, including that investigations into the case were concluded and that there was no scope for tampering with evidence. The bail would allow Raju to participate meaningfully in the trial by the magistrate court, Kumar said. He also said Raju’s health required continuous monitoring by doctors.
On Monday, Harin P Raval, additional solicitor-general, who argued for the CBI, had questioned the veracity of the health reports submitted by Nims, where Raju has been treated since September last year. Raval requested the court to form a special team of doctors to look into Raju’s condition. Raval had opposed the bail petition, saying the CBI was awaiting replies to letters rogatory sent to six countries. He also said there was scope to influence witnesses that the CBI had mentioned.
| TIMELINE |
| 2009 Jan 7: B Ramalinga Raju confesses to accounting fraud Jan 9: AP CID launches probe, Raju brothers surrender to police Jan 10: Brothers remanded to judicial custody CID arrests CFO Vadlamani Jan 12: Vadlamani confesses that fixed deposits were unreal and fictitious Jan 16: Court rejects Raju’s first bail plea Jan 24: PW auditors Gopalakrishnan and Talluri arrested by CID sleuths Feb 16: Government orders CBI probe into Satyam fraud Apr 6: ED lodges case against Satyam and Raju for alleged money laundering Apr 7: CBI files chargesheet against Raju brothers, Vadlamani and others May 13: Raju’s bail plea dismissed again |
| 2010 Feb 17: Special court on Satyam becomes functional Feb 19: High Court again rejects Raju’s bail plea Mar 5: Court directs Nims to file report on Raju's health Mar 11: Raju moves SC against AP HC order rejecting bail application Mar 15: SC refuses bail on the ground that he may influence witnesses Apr 23: CBI seeks permission to question Raju via video conferencing Jul 12: Raju gives consent to examination through questionnaire Jul 20: HC grants bail to Rama Raju, four others in Satyam case Jul 28: Ramalinga Raju files petition in High Court seeking bail Aug 18: Raju gets conditional bail |