Court to fix date for Satyam verdict on June 26

A special court trying the case of multi-crore rupee accounting fraud in erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Limited (SCSL) said it will pronounce the date of judgement on June 26.  

Special judge B V L N Chakravarti of XXI court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) here said the date for pronouncement of verdict in the case related to accounting fraud in SCSL will be given on June 26.  

Satyam Computers founder and former chairman B Ramalinga Raju, the prime accused, and nine others accused in the case were present in the court.  

The trial in Satyam fraud case had concluded last week before the special court which examined 216 witnesses and marked 3,038 documents during the course of the hearing.  

Touted as the country's biggest accounting fraud, the scam came to light on January 7, 2009, after Ramalinga Raju confessed to manipulating his company's account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of several crores of rupees.  

Raju was arrested by the Crime Investigation Department of Andhra Pradesh Police two days later along with his brother.

In February that year, CBI took over the investigation and filed three charge sheets against Raju and others, (on April 7, 2009, November 24, 2009 and January 7, 2010), which were later clubbed into one.  

They have been accused, mainly, of falsification of accounts which caused a loss of Rs 14,000 crore (Rs 140 billion) to Satyam shareholders.

Raju and others were charged with offences ranging from cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery, breach of trust under relevant sections of IPC by way of inflating invoices and incomes, account falsification, faking fixed deposits, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various I-T laws.  

Raju later retracted his confession statement and contended that all charges levelled by the CBI are false. Satyam Computer Services Ltd later merged with Tech Mahindra.  

At present, all the accused are out on bail, though the Enforcement Directorate has also filed a charge sheet against them under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.