B Ramalinga Raju has been sentenced to seven years in jail in the multi-million Satyam Computer Services Ltd (SCSL) accounting fraud case, by a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Hyderabad. The court of judge BVLN Chakravarthi also slapped a fine of Rs 50 million on Raju.
Raju who was earlier pronounced guilty by the court had requested the judge for lighter punishment due to his health issues. He has already spent 32 months in jail. The court had pronounced all the 10 people guilty in one of the biggest corporate scandals involving an Indian company. Besides Ramalinga Raju, who was the founder-chairman of the company, the other accused 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.
The case had rocked India Inc and led to a massive upheaval in the software and Information Technology Enabled Service (ITES) industry in the country and was investigated by the CBI.
Raju, one of the pioneers in the industry and Satyam's founder and then chairman, had confessed to manipulating his company's account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of millions of rupees. The confession sent shockwaves across the industry.
He was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police's Crime Investigation Department along with his brother Rama Raju and others on January 11. 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.
Raju and others were charged with offences like cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breach of trust under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) for inflating invoices and incomes, account falsification, faking fixed deposits, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various Income Tax laws.
In February 2009, the CBI took over the investigation and filed three charge sheets which were later clubbed into one. The first two charge sheets dealt with the account fudging by Raju with the assistance of nine others, while the third charge sheet relates to "violation" of various Income Tax rules.
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 140 billion to shareholders of Satyam, while the defence 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.
