The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has described Satyam case as a benchmark case in pursuit of excellence.
This was one of the biggest corporate frauds having international ramifications involving digital evidence, computer forensic techniques, audit procedures, accounting standards, revenue records, source codes, computer network logs etc, the investigating agency said in a press release.
A special court here on Thursday sentenced Satyam Computer Services Ltd's founder former chairman B. Ramalinga Raju and nine others to seven years rigorous imprisonment.
The CBI, which took up investigations in February 2009, had formed a Multi Disciplinary Investigation Team (MDIT), which worked overtime and completed the investigation involving huge magnitude of documents and evidence in a record time.
The investigation proved that the accounts of the company were fudged for over a decade and there was a hole to the tune of Rs.5,040 crore in the balance sheet as in September 2008. The institutional investors lost Rs.1,611 crore while there was a mark to market loss of more than Rs 14,000 crore.
The accused fudged the accounts, overstated the profits and revenues, suppressed the liabilities and availed bank loans to the tune of Rs.1,220 crore based on forged board resolutions. The accused had wrongly projected a false growth of around 25 percent every quarter, projected a current account balance of Rs.1,841 crore as against Rs.128 crore, wrongly reflected Fixed Deposits (FD) of Rs.3,319 crore as against Rs.11 crore and FD interest of Rs.375 crore as against mere Rs.7 lakh.
Ramalinga Raju, managing director Rama Raju and chief financial officer V. Srinivas had perpetrated the fraud for over a decade which came to light in 2009.
Employees Ramakrishna, VenkatapathiRaju, and Srisailam had actively assisted the Rajus. The statutory auditors Gopalakrishna, T. Srinivas and internal auditor Prbhakara Gupta had knowingly failed to point out the fraud and actively connived with the Rajus in suppressing it.
Ramalinga Raju's brother Suryanarayana Raju had assisted the chairman and the MD to offload the shares during the fraud period and in circulating the proceeds of crime.
After thorough investigation, the CBI filed first charge sheet in a record time of around 45 days. The investigation was completed in around 10 months.
The court had framed charges against the accused on October 25, 2010. It examined 226 prosecution witnesses, the release said.
