Satyam founder Raju, 9 others get 7-year jail term

Hyderabad, April 9

Six years after the biggest accounting fraud shook the corporate world in India, Satyam chief B Ramalinga Raju and nine others were on Thursday found guilty by a special court on charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating in the Rs 7000-crore scam and sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on Ramalinga Raju, and his brother B. Rama Raju and Rs 20-25 lakh each on the remaining accused, a lawyer said.

Raju and former employee G Ramakrishna were also found guilty under section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of IPC by Special Judge BVLN Chakravarthi, in the case probed by CBI.

Except Raju's another brother B Suryanarayana Raju and former internal chief auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta, all the others eight accused were found guilty under IPC sections 467, 468, 471 and 477A, relating to forgery of security, forgery for purpose of cheating and falsification of accounts, according to V Chandrashekhar, Superintendent of Police, CBI Hyderabad Zone.

Charges against Raju and others include criminal conspiracy and forgery of valuable security carrying minimum punishment of ten years imprisonment and maximum of life sentence.

While the accounting fraud was to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore, it had caused an estimated notional loss of Rs 14,000 crore to investors and unlawful gains of Rs 1,900 crore to Raju and others.

Ramalinga Raju and his brother and Satyam's former Managing Director B Rama Raju were also found guilty under section 409 of IPC relating to criminal breach of trust.

 All the 10 accused were present in the court, where media was not allowed, when the verdict was pronounced.

After pronouncing the order, the judge directed the CBI to take all the accused into custody.

Touted as the country's biggest accounting fraud, the Satyam scam had come to light on January 7, 2009, after the firm's founder and then Chairman Ramalinga Raju allegedly confessed to manipulating his company's account books and inflating profits over many years.

Raju was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police's Crime Investigation Department two days later after he allegedly confessed to the fraud, along with his brother Rama Raju and others.

Around 3,000 documents were marked and 226 witnesses examined during the trial that began nearly six years back.

Besides Ramalinga Raju, the others accused are - B Rama Raju, former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas, Suryanarayana Raju, former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam and Satyam's former internal chief auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta.

Satyam was purchased by Mahindra & Mahindra owned company Tech Mahindra in April, 2009.

Meanwhile, V V Lakshmi Narayana, who was part of the high-profile probe, said the CBI’s Multi-Disciplinary Investigation Team (MDIT) played a crucial role in unraveling the Satyam scam, which was not only massive in scale but also posed challenge to investigators due to web of transactions and other technicalities.

“MDIT was started for the first time in the CBI. The Andhra Pradesh CID also carried out excellent investigation initially. This is one of the major corporate frauds in the country.

“Understanding the system and the fraud was the major challenge we faced during investigation at the beginning. When we got the case in our hands it was over 40-day old. And within 43 days we had to file the charge sheet. And we did. On some days we worked for over 18 to 19 hours a day,” Lakshmi Narayana told PTI today.

The officer, currently posted as the Joint Commissioner of Police, Thane, was with the CBI when the case was handed over to the agency by the Centre on February 18, 2009.

“Our officials had to travel to several countries to chase the case. We have sent Letters of Rogatory to investigate the case,” the police official said.

Ramalinga Raju, former chairman of Satyam Computer Services Limited (later merged with Tech Mahindra) had confessed to the Rs 7,800-crore fraud on January 7, 2009 and accepted he had cooked company’s account books and inflated profits over the last several years. He was arrested by AP police on January 9, 2009.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs said the case forced the ministry to relook into the role of independent directors of companies.

After the CBI filed its chargesheet in the case, the Enforcement Directorate also got involved and started its investigation and provisionally attached some of the assets belonging to Raju and his family members.

The CBI had termed Satyam case as one of the biggest corporate frauds in independent India, having international ramifications.

“It was a complicated case involving digital evidences, computer techniques, audit procedures accounting standards, revenue records source codes and computer network log etc,” according to the CBI. — PTI