Satyam Raju, brother are guilty, get 7-year rigorous imprisonment

Hyderabad: B. Ramalinga Raju, founder chairman of Sat-yam Computers, was sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment in jail by a Special CBI Court on Thursday.

The special court judge B.V.L.N. Chakravarthi, while pronouncing the verdict in the case, declared Ramalinga Raju, his brother and former MD of Satyam, B. Rama Raju and eight others guilty of offences under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code. All of them received the same jail term. Following the verdict, all of them were shifted to Cherlapally Jail on Thursday.

The Raju brothers were also fined Rs 5.24 crore each. Ramalinga Raju has already spent 32 months in jail while Rama Raju has been behind bars for 31 months. All the accused were on bail as of date.

While sentencing the other accused, including former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakri-shnan and T. Srinivas, B. Suryanarayana Raju (another brother of Ramalinga Raju), former employees G. Ramakrishna, D. Venkatpathi Raju and Ch. Srisailam, and Satyam’s former internal chief auditor V.S. Prabhakar Gupta to seven years in jail, the judge fined them Rs 25 lakh to Rs 31 lakh each.

The confession of Raju on January 9, 2009, admitting manipulating his company’s account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of crores of rupees, had rocked India as Satyam was a premier player in the software industry.

After his confession, B. Ramalinga Raju, his brother and the others were arrested by the Andhra Pradesh Police’s Crime Investigation Department on January 11, 2009, on a complaint by Ms Leena Mangath, an investor of the company. Later, the case was transferred to the CBI.

A special case was constituted on November 8, 2010, exclusively trying the offences charged against the accused under sections 409 IPC (Criminal breach of trust by merchant or agent), 406 IPC (Criminal breach of trust) 419 (Impersonation), 467, 468, 471, 477-A (Forgery, using forged documents as genuine and fudging of accounts) on various counts.

On Thursday, the judge also convicted Ramalinga Raju and Ramakrishna under Section 201 IPC (destruction of evidence). The judge ruled that the sentences awarded for various counts would run concurrently.

The Satyam scam was one of the biggest corporate frauds in history, having ramifications on digital evidence, computer forensic techniques, audit procedures, accounting standards, revenue records, source codes, computer network logs etc.

The CBI alleged that the scam had caused losses to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore to shareholders of Satyam. The accused had countered the charges claiming that they were not responsible for the fraud and that the CBI had framed charges against them with the help of fabricated documents.

During the trial, the judge examined 3,137 documents and 226 witnesses and 20 material objects.

The CBI had filed the first chargesheet on April 7, 2009, the second one on November 24, 2009 and the third on January 7, 2010. Later, the three chargesheets were clubbed into one.

In his verdict, judge Chakravarthi, observed: “Before I conclude the judgement… I would like to place on record my appreciation for the assistance extended by learned special public prosecutors and counsel for the accused; I must appreciate the work done by my staff members who extended wholehearted support to me.”

In January 2014, Ramalinga Raju’s wife Nandini Raju and sons Teja Raju and Rama Raju were among his 21 relatives who were convicted by a Special Court for Economic Offences in Hyderabad for defaulting on income tax payments.

Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, Vadlamani Srinivas and former director Ram Mynampati were sentenced to six months in jail by the Special Court for Economic Offences on December 8, 2014, for violation of various provisions of the Companies Act.