Satyam case set for trial

By M H Ahssan

The stage is set for the multi-crore Satyam fraud case to go to trial with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filing its charge sheet against nine accused including the company’s former chairman B Ramalinga Raju and his two brothers Rama Raju and Suryanarayana Raju in the local CBI court on Tuesday.

The other accused are former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, PW auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas, Satyam vice president G Ramakrishna, senior finance manager D Venkatapathi Raju, and assistance finance manager Ch Srisailam.

All the nine accused have been charged with offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, impersonation, forgery of valuable security, forgery for the purpose of cheating, showing forged documents as genuine, falsification of accounts and causing disappearance of evidence. The sections it invoked forthis are 120-B read with 420, 419,467, 468, 471, 477-A and 201 of IPC. If proven, the charge under section 467 alone would impose life imprisonment on the accused while the punishment for remaining charges may vary between two to seven years in jail.

The charge sheet did not touch the area of diversion of funds by the Raju brothers or anyone else. “We could not come to any conclusion so far on this aspect. If we arrive at a definite conclusion in further investigations, we will file a supplementary charge sheet,” CBI DIG V V Lakshmi Narayana told HNN.

Interestingly, the CBI left out D Gopalakrishnam Raju, general manager of SRSR Services Ltd, who had also been arrested by the CID in connection with the Satyam case, on the grounds that no incriminating evidence was found on him. Sources said he is likely to turn an approver at a later stage.

Addressing the media after submitting the charge sheet, DIG Lakshmi Narayana said as of now, this is the final charge sheet. “However, investigation by the agency is still continuing and if there is any new evidence, we would file the same in the form of an additional affidavit under 173 (8) of the CrPC in the coming days,” the DIG said.

The filing of the charge sheet would not offer any immediate relief to the accused as the prosecution sources made it clear that the actual trial would commence after some time. “There are several stages still left and we will continue to oppose the bail pleas of the accused,” the sources said.

The CBI, which took over the case from the CID on February 20, 40 days after the scam broke out, is under a legal obligation to file the charge sheet before the expiry of the statutory 90 days time limit. After taking over the case, the CBI filed the charge sheet in 45 days.

The agency brought all the documents pertaining to the Satyam case in a closed van to the CBI court. This included a 300-page charge sheet, citation of 433 witnesses and 1,532 additional documents spread over 65,000 pages, weighing 22 tonnes in all.

“We have covered areas like forgery, fictitious invoices and the loans arranged through 327 frontal companies floated by the accused and collected incriminating evidence against the accused,” Lakshmi Narayana said at the media briefing. In its charge sheet, the CBI has reportedly mentioned that the total value of the scam far exceeded the much publicised figure of Rs 7,000 crore.

Meanwhile, the court on Tuesday allowed the CBI sleuths to collect the specimen signatures and the handwritings of the accused before a magistrate before April 9.