Hyderabad: A special court in Hyderabad on Thursday convicted Satyam computers founder B. Ramalinga Raju and nine others in the multi-crore accounting fraud in erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Ltd (SCSL).
CBI DIG Mr Chandrasekhar said: “All ten accused were convicted by the court.” The court is yet to announce the quantum of punishment in the case.
“The company head, Ramalinga Raju and members of his family secured illegal gains to the tune of about Rs 2,743 crore by various tricks. The fraud was perpetrated by inflating the revenue of the company through false sales invoices and showing corresponding gains by forging the bank statements with the connivance of the Statutory and Internal Auditors of the company. The annual financial statements of the company with inflated revenue were published for several years and this lead to higher price of the scrip in the market. In the process, innocent investors were lured to invest in the company. Attempts were made to conceal the fraud by acquiring the companies of kith and kin,” CBI said in court today.
During the last hearing on March 9, Special Judge BVLN Chakravarthi had said, “On April 9, the judgement will be pronounced. I am making it very clear. April 9 will be the final date for the verdict. No question of further adjournments. Court will not wait.”
Touted as the country’s biggest accounting fraud, the scam had come to light on January 7, 2009, after the firm’s founder and then Chairman B Ramalinga Raju allegedly confessed to manipulating his company’s account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of crores of rupees.
Raju was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police’s Crime Investigation Department two days later after he allegedly confessed to the fraud, along with his brother Rama Raju and others. All the 10 accused in the case are currently out on bail.
Around 3,000 documents were marked and 226 witnesses examined during the trial that began nearly six years ago.
Besides Raju, the nine others convicted in the case 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.
