Raju, 5 others surrender before trial court

HYDERABAD, INDIA: B. Ramalinga Raju, the prime accused in the multi-crore Satyam accounting fraud, and five others surrendered before a trial court here on Wednesday.

Ramalinga Raju, his brother B. Rama Raju, former Satyam CFO V. Srinivas and three other former employees of the IT firm — G. Ramakrishna, Venkatapathi Raju and Srisailam -- surrendered before the 21st additional chief metropolitan magistrate as the Supreme Court had last month cancelled their bail.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) later took the disgraced founder and former chairman of Satyam Computer Services Limited to Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) here for a medical check-up.

All the six accused were later taken to Chanchalguda central jail here. Ramalinga Raju is returning to jail after nearly a year. The magistrate ordered that they be produced personally before the court during every hearing.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday rejected the petitions of the accused seeking additional time to surrender.

The apex court had on October 26 cancelled the bail of Raju and five others and had asked them to surrender before the trial court by November 10.

Raju, 56, was arrested in January last year after he admitted to India's biggest corporate fraud. He was granted bail by the Andhra Pradesh High Court on August 18 on the ground that other accused had also been granted bail.

At that time Raju was undergoing treatment at NIMS for hepatitis C infection. He had been avoiding court since November last year, delaying the commencement of the trial. He was discharged from NIMS on October 2.