Hyderabad, Apr 9 (PTI): Satyam Computer Services founder B. Ramalinga Raju and his brother B. Rama Raju were on Thursday sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 5.5 crore after they were convicted by a special court in the Rs 7000-crore accounting fraud that shook the corporate world six years ago.
Eight others, including former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas, and former Price Waterhouse auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T. Srinivas, were also sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment and fined varying amounts up to Rs 25 lakh by Special Judge B.V.L.N. Chakravarthi.
The 10 accused were convicted of criminal conspiracy and cheating among other offences in the scam dubbed as the country's biggest accounting fraud.
Once the poster boy of the IT-enabled services industry, Byrraju Ramalinga Raju (60), and former employee G. Ramakrishna were also found guilty under section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the Indian Penal Code. The Central Bureau of Investigation probed the case.
Except B. Suryanarayana Raju, one of Raju’s brothers, and former internal chief auditor V.S. Prabhakar Gupta, the other eight accused were found guilty under IPC sections 467, 468, 471 and 477A, relating to forgery of security, forgery for purpose of cheating and falsification of accounts, according to V. Chandrashekhar, Superintendent of Police, CBI Hyderabad Zone.
While the accounting fraud was to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore, it had caused an estimated notional loss of Rs 14,000 crore to investors and unlawful gains of Rs 1900 crore to Raju and others.
Ramalinga Raju and his brother B. Rama Raju, then Satyam's Managing Director, were also found guilty under section 409 of IPC relating to criminal breach of trust.
All the ten accused were present in the court, where media was not allowed, when the verdict was pronounced.
After pronouncing the order, the judge directed the CBI to take all the accused into custody.
The Satyam fraud, the biggest in India’s corporate history, had come to light on January 7, 2009, after Ramalinga Raju allegedly confessed to manipulating his company's account books and inflating profits over many years.
Raju was arrested by the Crime Investigation Department of the Andhra Pradesh Police two days later, along with his brother Rama Raju and others.
Around 3,000 documents were marked and 226 witnesses examined during the trial, which began nearly six years ago.
Satyam was purchased by Mahindra & Mahindra owned company Tech Mahindra in April 2009.
