Date of verdict in Satyam case to be announced July 28

Hyderabad, June 26 (IANS) A special court here will announce on July 28 the date of verdict in the case relating to multi-crore accounting fraud in erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Limited.

The special court, which was to pronounce the date on Thursday, deferred it by over a month.

Special Judge B.V.L.N. Chakravarthi of 21st additional chief metropolitan magistrate’s (ACMM) court directed all 10 accused to appear before the court on July 28.

CBI’s special public prosecutor K. Venu Madhav said prime accused founder and former chairman of Satyam Computers, B. Ramalinga Raju, and nine others attended the court on Thursday.

The trial in the case concluded last week before the special court, which examined 216 witnesses and relied on 3,038 documents during the hearing. The documents were produced by the the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as evidence.

The Satyam scam, said to be the country’s biggest accounting fraud, came to light on Jan 7, 2009, when Ramalinga Raju confessed that the company’s account books and profits were inflated over many years to the tune of several crores of rupees.

The CBI put the loss to the shareholders at Rs.14,000 crore. The investigating agency also charged Raju of gaining Rs.2,500 crore by selling his family shares in Satyam.

Raju, who was also charged with floating several front companies to buy land with the scam money, was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police on Jan 9, 2009.

The CBI, which later took up the investigations, filed three charge sheets against Raju and other accused, charging them with cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery, falsification of accounts and breach of trust.

Raju, who was released on bail, later retracted his confession and contended that all the charges levelled against him were false.

After the scam, Tech Mahindra took over Satyam Computers in a government-sponsored auction. Mahindra Satyam later merged with Tech Mahindra.