The Special Economic Offences Court in Hyderabad sentenced Satyam founder-chairman B Ramalinga Raju and eight others to six months in jail in an income tax violation case. The other accused in the case include his brother and Satyam’s former MD B Rama Raju, ex-CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas, Raju’s another brother B Suryanarayana Raju, former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam, and Satyam’s former internal chief auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta.
Raju and others have been charged with offences ranging from cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery, breach of trust under relevant sections of IPC, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various I-T laws.
The brothers have also been fined Rs 10 lakh. In connection with complaints filed by capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the special court will pronounce its verdict on December 23.
Raju’s troubles had started when Satyam’s accounting scam came to light on January 7, 2009, when he confessed to manipulating his company’s account books. The trial in the Satyam fraud case had concluded in June before the special court, which examined 216 witnesses and marked 3,038 documents during the course of the hearing. During the trial, the CBI alleged that the scam caused a loss of over Rs 14,000 crore to Satyam shareholders.