Bail Granted for Satyam Scam Accused
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 14 October 2011, 00:33 IST
Printer Print Email Email
Bangalore: The four former employees of Satyam Computers and a former auditor of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) involved in multi-crore accounting fraud were granted bail by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Dalveer Bhandari said, "On the totality of the circumstances, we deem it appropriate to release them on bail on a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh and surety of like amount." The accused were released on bail as per ordered by the court. The four accused are three executives of Satyam; G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam and an internal chief auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta. Subramani Gopalakrishnan was PWC's former auditor to be out on bail. They had challenged the order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in apex court but their bail pleas were rejected there. On behalf of the accused petitioners, Ashok Desai, Senior counsel told that the accused have already gone through imprisonment for two years and three months, though the maximum punishment which is liable to be imposed upon them would be seven years for the alleged crime. They had wanted bail on the grounds that the trial in the Satyam scam was not concluded within the apex court-stipulated deadline of July 31, and that all the prosecution witnesses had been examined. 226 witnesses were already examined by the trial court on behalf of the prosecution and also examined 15 investigating officers. Eight out of them have been cross-examined by the defence in the case, the counsels had told the apex court. Rohatgi further had said that the remaining investigating officers would be cross-examined very soon. The Supreme Court had asked the trial court to cease the evidence of the investigating officers as immediately as possible. B Suryanarayana Raju, younger brother of Satyam's founder B Ramalinga Raju and former PriceWaterhouseCoopers' auditor T Srinivas had already been granted bail by different courts earlier. The major accused, B Ramalinga Raju and his brother and Satyam's former MD B Rama Raju, have so far not approached the apex court for bail and are wedged in Hyderabad's Chanchalguda Central Prison underneath judicial custody. One more accused in the case is Satyam's former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas, who too is in judicial custody.