Satyam: Court dismisses plea of accused

A special court trying the multi-crore Satyam accounting fraud today dismissed the petition of three accused in the scam seeking postponement on hearing of charges against them.

The XXI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court dismissed the petitions of former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas, and two former Satyam employees D Venkatapathi Raju, Senior Manager (Finance) and Ch Srisailam, Assistant Manager, saying the petitions were devoid of merit.

The trio, on Tuesday last filed petitions seeking postponement of the case on the grounds that CBI's probe into the case was still pending as the agency had stated that it will file a fourth chargesheet in the case.

"Investigations in the case are not complete and the three chargesheets filed by the CBI are not final reports and therefore the trial cannot be proceeded with," the defense counsel had earlier argued.

However, CBIs Special Public Prosecutor K Surender had strongly opposed the applications saying the court had already rejected a similar plea of another accused earlier and sought the court not to stop the proceedings in the case. Following this, the matter was posted for Friday.

Magistrate BVLN Chakravarti in his orders observed "the contention of petitioners that they will suffer prejudice if trial is preceded with pending further investigation and filing of the fourth chargesheet,and their request to postpone the trial in this case till filing of fourth chargesheet, completion of investigation in the case, is not tenable in law."

The magistrate further directed the defense counsel to file their final arguments seeking discharge from the case on September 29 to enable the court to proceed further with framing of charges against the ten accused.