For corporate fraud, Raju gets 7 years in jail; Rs 5 crore fine

Delhi, India: A special CBI court trying the multi-crore accounting fraud in erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Ltd (SCSL) sentenced the firm's founder and then Chairman B Ramalinga Raju to seven years in jail.

Raju and his brother B Rama Raju have also been fined Rs 5 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 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 seven years rigorous imprisonment.

The others include B Rama Raju, former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas, B Suryanarayana Raju, former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam and Satyam's former internal chief auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta.

The fraud came to light on June 7, 2009 after Raju allegedly confessed to manipulating his company's account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of crores of rupees.

Various news papers and agencies report that the CBI charged the offenders with offences like cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breach of trust under relevant sections of IPC for inflating invoices and incomes, account falsification, faking fixed deposits, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various Income Tax laws.

While the 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.

During the trial, the CBI alleged that the scam caused a loss of Rs 14,000 crore to shareholders of Satyam, while the defense 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 separate charge sheet against them under Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

In January last year, Ramalinga Raju's wife Nandini Raju and sons Teja Raju and Rama Raju were among 21 relatives of the ex-Satyam boss who were convicted by a Special Court for Economic Offences here for default in Income Tax payment.

Last year, on December 8, Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, Vadlamani Srinivas and former director Ram Mynampati were sentenced to six months jail term 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.