Satyam case verdict deferred till April 9

A special CBI court here on Monday adjourned pronouncement of the judgment in the multi-crore Satyam scam till April 9.

Special Judge B.V.L.N. Chakravarthi of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court, who was scheduled to pronounce the verdict on Monday, deferred it by a month.

The court on December 23, 2014 had set March 9 as the date for the judgement in the country's biggest accounting fraud that left the corporate world stunned in 2009.

All 10 accused, including prime accused B. Ramalinga Raju, the Satyam Computer Services Ltd's founder and former chairman, appeared in the court.

The scam came to light on January 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 with gaining Rs.2,500 crore by selling his family shares in Satyam.

Raju was charged with floating several front companies to buy land with the scam money as well. He was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police on January 9, 2009.

The CBI, which later took up the investigation, filed three chargesheets against Raju and the 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.

The others accused in the case are Raju's brothers B. Rama Raju and B. Suryanarayana Raju, Satyam's former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas, former PricewaterhouseCoopers auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T. Srinivas, former employees G. Ramakrishna, D. Venkatpathi Raju and Ch. Srisailam, and Satyam's former internal chief auditor V.S. Prabhakar Gupta.

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

An economic offences court on Dec 8 last year sentenced Ramalinga Raju and three others to six months imprisonment in six of the seven cases filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO).