Satyam fraud case: 7 year jail term for founder Raju

New Delhi: A special court in Hyderabad on Thursday declared Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju, along with nine others convicted in multi-crore accounting fraud case, as guilty. Raju has been sentenced to 7 years in jail in accounting fraud. Rs 5 crore penalty has also been imposed on him. 

The special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court of judge BVLN Chakravarthi in Hyderabad pronounced all of them guilty in one of the biggest corporate scandals involving an Indian company. Sentence in the case will be pronounced on Friday.

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.

A Hyderabad court had sent Raju and his brother Rama Raju to six months in jail, and had also imposed a fine of Rs.5 lakh on each of them in connection with the massive corporate fraud case in November last year.

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 was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Raju, one of the pioneers in the industry and Satyam’s founder and then chairman, allegedly confessed to manipulating his company’s account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of crores of rupees. The confession sent shockwaves across the industry.

The charges against Raju, who was arrested in January 2009 for one of India’s biggest corporate scams worth more than Rs.7000 crores, include criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, cheating and forgery.

The Supreme Court had later granted bail to the two accused.

The Andhra Pradesh Police had arrested Raju and his brother Rama Raju on January 9, 2010. Nine other accused, including top company officials and auditors, were also arrested in the case. 

(With inputs from agencies)