BackRamalinga Raju appears in court
Raju furnishes a personal bond of Rs10,000
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Hyderabad: Former Satyam Computer Services Ltd chairman B. Ramalinga Raju, accused of perpetrating India’s biggest corporate fraud, on Friday appeared before a court probing a complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), and furnished a personal bond of Rs10,000.
The ED charged 213 people, including Raju and his kin, and 166 firms including Satyam Computer of money laundering in a prosecution complaint in October last year. It accused Raju and his relatives and associates of starting 327 “front companies" to divert the proceeds of the crime.
Raju is accused of cooking Satyam’s books to the tune of Rs7,136 crore during the years he was at the helm of the company, and is fighting conviction at another local court. He is currently out on bail along with nine other accused.
Others accused in the case—including Raju’s brothers B.Suryanarayana Raju and B. Rama Raju (former managing director of Satyam); Satyam’s former chief financial officer (CFO) Srinivas Vadlamani; former internal chief auditor V.S. Prabhakar Gupta; and former Pricewaterhouse Coopers auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T. Srinivas—also appeared before the XXI additional chief metropolitan magistrate court cum special sessions judge on Friday, and executed personal bonds of Rs10,000 each.
The court posted the matter to 5 May and directed authorities to serve copies of the ED’s prosecution complaint and other related documents to the accused, Press Trust of India reported.
The Satyam financial fraud, often called “India’s Enron", is being investigated by several agencies including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the ED, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and the income-tax department.
In January, an economic offences court in Hyderabad convicted directors of 19 companies whose promoters included wife and sons, family members and relatives of Raju for evading income tax.
During the course of its investigation, the ED issued six provisional orders attaching 350 immovable and five movable properties valued at Rs1,075 crore. This included Rs822 crore in fixed deposits belonging to Mahindra Satyam, the rebranded entity of Satyam Computer after it was acquired by Tech Mahindra Ltd in 2009 in a government-overseen auction.
Tech Mahindra integrated Mahindra Satyam with itself in June after the approval of the Andhra Pradesh high court, which at the time of granting the merger ruled that pending investigation by government agencies and prosecution in various legal forums will continue under the new management.
PTI contributed to this report.
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