The Satyam Info-City office building in Hyderabad
The Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)Court of judge BVLN Chakravarthi in Hyderabad pronounced all of them guilty in one of the biggest corporate scandals involving an Indian company
Besides Ramalinga Raju, who was the founder-chairman of the company, the other accused are, his brother and Satyam's former Managing Director B Rama Raju, former chief financial officer 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.
A special court trying the multi-crore accounting fraud in erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Ltd (SCSL) in its judgement on Thursday found the firm's founder and then Chairman B Ramalinga Raju guilty in the case and sentenced him to 7 years in Jail.
B Ramalinga Raju and his brother B Rama Raju have also been fined Rs five crore each while the eight others accused have been fined varying amounts up to Rs 25 lakh by the special court.
The special court found B Ramalinga Raju guilty of cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust.
The court has also found all the other 9 accused guilty in the case and sentenced them to 9 years rigorous imprisonment.
Following the verdict, all the ten convicts were taken into custody by CBI and were later shifted to the facility at around 6.30 PM, jail officials said. While Ramalinga Raju is prisoner number 4148, Rama Raju 4147
The Case
In 2009, B Ramalinga Raju, who founded Satyam as a family business with his brother and brother-in-law in 1987, said about $1 billion or 94 % of the cash on the company's books was fictitious
The confession sent shockwaves across the industry.
B Ramalinga Raju was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police's Crime Investigation Department along with his brother Rama Raju and others on January 09,2009. All the 10 accused in the case are currently out on bail.
B Ramalinga Raju and others were charged with offences like cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breach of trust under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code (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 the investigation and filed three charge sheets (on April 7, 2009, November 24, 2009 and January 7, 2010), which were later clubbed into one. The first two charge sheets dealt with the account fudging by Raju with the assistance of nine others, while the third charge sheet relates to "violation" of various Income Tax rules
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.
Around 3,000 documents were marked and 226 witnesses examined during the trial that began nearly six years ago
During the trial, the CBI alleged that the scam caused a loss of Rs 14,000 crore to shareholders of 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.
The Enforcement Directorate had also filed a charge sheet against them under Prevention of Money Laundering Act
In January 2014, Ramalinga Raju's wife Nandini Raju and sons Teja Raju and Rama Raju were among 21 relatives of the former Satyam boss who were convicted by a Special Court for Economic Offences in Hyderabad for default in Income Tax payment.
Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, Vadlamani Srinivas and former director Ram Mynampati were sentenced to six months jail term on December 8, 2014 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.
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