Satyam case: Court allows accused to plead

A local court on Friday allowed the petition of a former Satyam employee, accused in the multi-crore accounting scam, to plead his case on his own.

The XXI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court allowed the petition of G Ramakrishna, who worked as vice-president (Finance) in the IT firm, to represent himself in the case.

Ramakrishna had sought the court's permission to argue on his own against the CBI's allegations as part of hearing of arguments prior to the framing of charges. Magistrate BVLN Chakravarti, while permitting the application, asked him to give an undertaking by an affidavit sworn by himself that the petitioner will maintain the decorum of the court and he will not have any grievance that he was not provided with lawyer at any stage of the case.

The court may withdraw leave (permission) granted, half way through if the petitioner fails to assist the court or fails to maintain the decorum of the court properly, the magistrate said in his order.

The ACMM court, dealing with the Satyam fraud case, has so far heard the discharge petitions of seven out of ten accused and will take up on September 6 the discharge petitions of Satyam's former managing director Rama Raju, Ramakrishna and another former employee Prabhakar Gupta for hearing.