CBI issued notice on four Satyam officials’ bail plea

September 16th, 2011 - 10:39 pm ICT by IANS  

Ramalinga Raju New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) The Supreme Court Friday issued a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a bail plea of four officials of the erstwhile Satyam Computers Services Ltd. accused in one of India’s biggest corporate frauds.

A division bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Deepak Verma issued the notice, returnable in two weeks, after senior counsel Ashok Desai told the court that the prosecution had completed its arguments and there were no grounds for tampering with evidence.

The officials who have moved the court are the company’s former vice president G. Ramakrishna, former senior manager D. Venkatpathy Raju, former assistant manager C.S. Srisailam, and former head of the company’s internal audit V.S.P. Gupta.

The four former officials of the Satyam Computers Services Limited along with the firm’s erstwhile owner Ramalinga Raju and his brother are facing prosecution for fudging the company accounts and showing inflated profits which became the one of the greatest corporate scams.

The surfacing of the scam and consequent collapse of the company left lakhs of shareholders and others duped.

Appearing for one of the petitioners, Desai told the court that prosecution case was already over and at some point, the court will have to lay down the principle of bail as the accused could not be deprived of their personal liberty.

As the court was told that the trial court was asked to complete the trial by July 31, 2011, Justice Verma said that 18 days were lost because advocate abstained from attending the trial court. “He (the trial court judge) made good for some of the time that was lost.”

The apex court by its order of Oct 26, 2010, had directed the trial court to take up the hearing of the case on day-to-day basis and conclude the trial as expeditiously as possible, in any event, on or before July 31, 2011.

Appearing for another petitioner, senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi said that total sentence in the case was seven years and his client was already in custody for over two years.

As Rohtagi made his pleas, the court told him to reserve them for a later date when the matter would come up for hearing after the CBI files its response.

The four petitioners have challenged the Andhra Pradesh High Court order of Aug 30, 2011, by which it rejected their pleas for bail.

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