Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju, his brother B Rama Raju and eight others were convicted and sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment on Thursday for their role in India’s biggest corporate accounting fraud that shook the country six years ago.
A fine of Rs5 crore was imposed on each of the Raju brothers while others have been penalised with varying amounts up to a maximum of Rs25 lakh. The eight other accused in the scam include Satyam’s former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas and former Price-Waterhouse auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas.
Additional Metropolitan Magistrate BVlN Chakravarty held all the 10 accused guilty of criminal conspiracy, fraud, cheating and criminal breach of trust. The accounting fraud was of Rs7,000 crore but it caused an estimated notional loss of Rs14,000 crore to investors and unlawful gains of Rs1,900 crore to Raju and others.
Except Raju’s another brother B Suryanarayana Raju and former internal chief auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta, all other eight accused were found guilty under IPC Sections 467, 468, 471 and 477A, relating to forgery of security, forgery for purpose of cheating and falsification of accounts, according to V Chandrashekhar, SP, CBI Hyderabad Zone.
The 60-year-old Ramalinga Raju and former vice president of Satyam G Ramakrishna were also found guilty under Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the IPC by the judge in the case probed by the CBI, which had filed three chargesheets in the case accusing Ramalinga Raju and others causing a loss of Rs14,162 crore to the shareholders of the company.
Ramalinga Raju has already served 33 months in jail in two phases from January 10, 2009 to November 5, 2011, thus his remaining term will be adjusted against his total period of imprisonment.
Unlike his earlier 33 months in Chanchalguda Central Jail in Hyderabad as a special category undertrial, Ramalinga Raju will have a tough time in jail as a convict now. He and nine other convicts were sent to Charalapally Central jail later in the day.
Ramalinga Raju and other accused have so far enjoyed special facilities, including their own cook in jail. Satyam was purchased by Mahindra & Mahindra owned company Tech Mahindra in April, 2009. His lawyers are, however, planning to file an appeal against the special court judgement to get respite through bail.
When asked by the judge whether he would like to say anything, Ramalinga Raju handed over a written submission seeking leniency. He requested the judge to give him minimum punishment in view of his responsibilities to look after his children and aged parents as well as his record of social service. But the judge remained unmoved. While all the accused were present in the court at the time of pronouncement of judgment, the media’s entry was barred.
Though the prime accused was punished for various offences, the sentence under various charges will run concurrently. Others who were found guilty and sent to jail include B Suryanarayana Raju, internal auditor Prabhakar Gupta, and other employees of finance department Ch Srisailam and Venkatapathi Raju.
Earlier, the judge had postponed the pronouncement of judgement thrice since October, 2014 for various reasons. During the hearing of the case 216 witnesses were questioned and 3,038 documents were produced before the judge.
The scam had come to light on January 7, 2009 after Ramalinga Raju allegedly confessed to manipulating his company’s account books and inflating profits over many years. He was arrested by the Andhra Pradesh Police Crime Investigation Department two days later after he allegedly confessed to the fraud.