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All the 10 convicts in the Satyam Computer Services’ multi-crore accounting fraud case, including then chairman B Ramalinga Raju, expressed their inability to pay the penalty imposed, along with a seven-year sentence by the trial court in its judgment delivered on April 10.
“My client was made penniless. How will he pay the fine, which is so exorbitant?” said Ramalinga Raju’s lawyer, Uma Maheshwar Rao, before the judge of the economic offenses court, designated to hear the convicts’ appeal against the lower court's judgement, on Thursday.
Presenting their arguments, the counsel for a couple of other convicts have gone to the extent of saying that nobody was coming forward to lend money, as their clients had become social outcasts under the effect of adverse media publicity generated by the case, beside fear of CBI.
While awarding a maximum of seven-years rigorous imprisonment, the trial court had imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore each on Ramalinga Raju and his brother, Rama Raju, who was the managing director of erstwhile Satyam Computer Services. It handed a penalty from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 70 lakh each to the others convicted in the case.
“All that my client used to earn was his salary. The investigating agency had attached his salary account and since then, his family is on roads,” former PwC auditor Gopalakrishna's lawyer told the court while seeking suspension of the fine imposed by the lower court.
While the appeal petition filed against the judgement was expected to come up for hearing some time next month, the court on Thursday heard the arguments in a separate set of petitions filed by the convicts asking for suspension of fine as well as the sentence handed down to them, till the appellant court gives its verdict on the appeal.
Terming his client as the worst victim in the entire case, Raju’s lawyer argued there was no way he can pay the fine as all of his properties and bank accounts, including those of the third parties wrongly attributed as Raju’s benamis were attached by the Enforcement Directorate or the CBI.
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Raju had admitted on January 7, 2009, in a five-page letter that Satyam's profits had been overstated for years and assets falsified in a fraud allegedly worth over Rs 7,000 crore.'Suspend the sentence'
Making forceful arguments before special judge M Laxman, Raju's lawyer as well as the counsel for other convicts stated that the appeal will become a mockery if the sentence was not suspended by the court as their clients would as well be serving out the entire conviction before the appellant court delivers its verdict in a complex case like this.
"Special CBI court took two and half years to give its judgement even though the court was exclusively dealing with this particular case. How can this court which is burdened with several other cases be able to deliver the judgement faster than this," Uma Maheshwar Rao argued while stating that his client had already served 3 years and five months in jail and there was no rationale for keeping him in jail through a long and complex appeal process.
Judge M Laxman of the 8 th Metropolitan Special Court, who had incidentally convicted Raju and other accused with 6 months of imprisonment in a separate case filed by the Enforcement Directorate much before the CBI special court's verdict, has agreed with the counsel's point on the time required for the concluding the case.
He himself said it would take 10 years or at least 5 years to dispose off the appeal petition considering the voluminous documentary evidence and witness statements recorded in the case.
However, taking exception to the request for suspension of the sentence and fine, CBI counsel K Surender argued that the petitioners' appeal actually amounts to asking for suspension of the judgement altogether. CBI counsel said that the liberty given to the accused in the form of bail had resulted in the delay in prosecution as the accused had fabricated documents to complicate the case during that period.
On fine being exorbitant, the CBI counsel said the penalty imposed by the special CBI court was commensurate with the magnitude of the fraud they had committed. "They have abundant means of pooling money to pay the fine," he said. It may be mentioned here that the CBI had declared that that it would appeal for a higher punishment for the convicts.
The special metropolitan court has reserved the orders in this petition for Friday.
