The bail pleas of Satyam Computer Services’ founder, B Ramalinga Raju, and seven others charged in the multi-crore accounting fraud at the company were rejected by a local court here on Thursday.
The court gave three reasons for doing so — gravity of the offence, trial nearing completion and “the legal grounds (under various sections) on which Raju and others had applied for bail were not strong”.
Raju, his younger brother and former managing director, B Rama Raju; former chief financial officer Srinivas Vadlamani; former employees Ch Srisailam, D Venkatapathi Raju and G Ramakrishna, and former PricewaterhouseCoopers auditor S Gopalakrishnan had sought bail as the trial in the local court had not got completed within the deadline of July 31 stipulated by the Supreme Court.
This apart, Raju’s counsel said: “Also, my client has an impeccable track record of cooperating with the investigating agencies and, since the examination of witnesses has already been completed, there is no question of influencing them.”
Prosecutor K Surendra told Business Standard it was the local court's decision to deny bail and that Raju and others could now petition a higher court. “Our part (evidence in the trial court in support of the charge-sheets filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation) is over. We don’t know the number of documents and witnesses that they (defence) will produce. We will make our next move depending on all these aspects.”
According to Raju’s counsel, Bharat Kumar, they were yet to decide what to do. “We may approach the Andhra Pradesh high court,” he said.
Satyam plunged into a crisis on January 7, 2009, when Raju confessed to major financial wrongdoings over seveal years, including showing fictitious assets on the balance sheet. The case was handed over to CBI on February 18, 2009, by the Union government after a request from the state government. The chargesheet seeks conviction on various sections of the penal code, such as criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and falsification of accounts.
