Satyam scam: Raju gets 7 yrs in jail, fined Rs 5.5 cr

Hyderabad, Six years after the sensational Satyam scam stunned the corporate world, a special CBI court today held the founder chairman of Satyam Computers B Ramalinga Raju and nine others guilty and awarded them a seven-year imprisonment.
All 10 accused, including Raju’s brother and former Managing Director of the company Rama Raju, were convicted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 120B (criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using forged documents as genuine) and 477-A (falsification of accounts). Once seen as a poster boy of IT industry, Ramalinga Raju in January 2009 confessed to fudging his company’s accounts and inflating profits over many years to the tune of Rs 7,136 crore.
The CBI, which probed the case, alleged that the scam had caused a loss of Rs 14,000 crore to shareholders of Satyam, besides the huge damage to the image of the country’s IT sector.
While Raju brothers have been penalised Rs 5.5 crore each, the eight other accused were asked to pay a fine of Rs 50 lakh each. The Raju brothers faced charges under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC, a provision which attracted the maximum punishment.
All 10 accused are currently out on bail. Raju has already spent 32 months in jail following his arrest on January 9, 2009. The other accused in the case, considered the biggest fraud in the country’s corporate history, are: Raju’s relative B Suryanarayana Raju; former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas; Price Waterhouse’s former auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri; former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam; and former internal chief auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta.
Soon after judge BVLN Chakravarthy pronounced the verdict, the accused were taken to Chanchalguda central jail. Earlier, the judge rejected a request by Raju’s counsel for grant of special status for his client in the prison.
During the six-year trial, around 3,000 documents were marked and 226 witnesses examined. Raju was synonymous with IT growth in Andhra Pradesh in the early 1990s and was instrumental in catapulting Hyderabad to the global software map.
After the scam came to light, the Central Government suspended the company’s board of directors and appointed industry experts to steer the firm out of the woods. Satyam was later sold to Tech Mahindra and has since been rechristened as Mahindra Satyam.
Raju was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police’s Crime Investigation Department on January 9, 2009 along with his brother Rama Raju and others. In February 2009, the CBI took over the investigation and filed three charge-sheets which were later clubbed into one.
Timeline
2009
January 7: Ramalinga Raju confesses to a Rs 7,136-crore accounting fraud
January 8: Citibank freezes Satyam’s 30 accounts
January 9: Raju, younger brother B Rama Raju held. Centre disbands Satyam’s board
February 17: CBI takes over investigation
June 22: Mahindra unveils new brand identity for Satyam, Mahindra Satyam
2011
November 2: SC grants bail to Raju as the CBI fails to file final charge sheet on time
2013
October 28: ED files a criminal complaint against 47 persons and 166 corporate entities headed by Raju
2014
December 8: Raju and three others get six months jail
2015
April 9: CBI court holds 10 accused guilty