Satyam's Raju gets 7 years imprisonment, Rs 5 cr fine

NEW DELHI: B Ramalinga Raju, the prime accused in the Rs 17,000-crore Satyam case, has been named guilty by a special CBI court and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment with Rs five crore fine.

A special CBI court trying the multi-crore accounting fraud in erstwhile Satyam Computer Services has named all the 10 accused in the Satyam scam as guilty. The others include B Rama Raju, former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas, B Suryanarayana Raju, former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam and Satyam’s former internal chief auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta.

The fraud came to light on June 7, 2009, after Raju, one of the key founders of erstwhile Satyam Computer Services, allegedly confessed to manipulating his company’s account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of crores of rupees.

Reports say that the CBI charged the offenders with offences like cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breach of trust under relevant sections of IPC for inflating invoices and incomes, account falsification, faking fixed deposits, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various Income Tax laws.

While the CBI accused Raju and the others of cheating, breach of trust by way of inflating invoices and incomes in the first and third charge sheets, the second one dealt with the accused allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various IT laws.

During the trial, the CBI alleged that the scam caused a loss of Rs 14,000 crore to shareholders of Satyam, while the defense countered the charges saying the accused were not responsible for the fraud and all the documents filed by the central agency relating to the case were fabricated and not according to the law.

The Enforcement Directorate had also filed a separate charge sheet against them under Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

In January last year, Ramalinga Raju’s wife Nandini Raju and sons Teja Raju and Rama Raju were among 21 relatives of the ex-Satyam boss who were convicted by a Special Court for Economic Offences here for default in Income Tax payment.

Last year, on December 8, Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, Vadlamani Srinivas and former director Ram Mynampati were sentenced to six months jail term and fined by the Special Court for Economic Offences in connection with complaints filed by Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) for violation of various provisions of the Companies Act.