A special court on Tuesday set March 9, 2015, as the date for the verdict in the multi-crore accounting fraud in Satyam Computer Services (SCSL), citing voluminous documents of the case, according to special judge BVLN Chakravarthi who is trying the case probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“You know the volume of the case, it requires some more time to study. You may be satisfied or not with the outcome, but I must satisfy myself before coming to a conclusion. Typing of the judgment itself needs two to three weeks,” the judge told prosecution and defence counsels. Around 3,000 documents were marked and as many as 226 witnesses were examined in the trial that began nearly six years ago.
Confirming the same, CBI’s special public prosecutor K Surender said, “The judge has set March 9, 2015, as the final date for verdict in the Satyam case.”
Besides Raju, the other accused are 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 was arrested by the CID of the Andhra Pradesh Police after he allegedly confessed to the fraud, along with his brother Rama Raju and others. Raju and others were charged with offences like cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breach of trust under relevant sections of the IPC for inflating invoices and incomes, account falsification, faking fixed deposits, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various income tax laws.
In February 2009, the CBI took over investigation and filed three charge sheets on April 7, 2009, November 24, 2009 and January 7, 2010, which were later clubbed into one. During the trial, the CBI alleged that the scam caused a loss of R14,000 crore to shareholders of erstwhile Satyam, while the defence 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. At present, all the accused are out on bail, though the Enforcement Directorate has also filed a charge sheet against them.
Recently, Raju, his brother and Satyam’s former MD B Rama Raju, former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas and former director Ram Mynampati were given six months jail term along with a fine of R10 lakh each on December 8 by the Special Court for Economic Offences in connection with complaints filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO). However, the court order was subsequently suspended to enable the accused to file appeals.
