CBI files chargesheet against Raju, eight others

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the Rs 7,800-crore financial scandal at Satyam Computer Services, today filed a chargesheet against nine accused in the case before the XIV additional chief metropolitan court, the designate court for the CBI cases.

The CBI named Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju, his brothers B Rama Raju and B Suryanaryana Raju, company's former chief financial officer Srinivas Vadlamani, Price Waterhouse auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri, and company's vice-president (finance) G Ramakrishna and two other employees Venkatapathy Raju and Srisailam.

The CBI has filed cases under Section 120 B, 420, 496, 467, 472 and 477A of the IPC and are charged with cheating, falsification of records, inflating the accounts, offloading shares at opportune time and fudging the balance sheets.

CBI deputy director general V Lakshminaryarna said that the CBI has found evidence against the accused on these charges. "'We will file supplementary chargesheets as and when he get more evidence,'' he said.

The CBI filed about 300-page document before the court giving the summary of the case facts and the annexures to it. In all, it brought in 22 trunk loads of documents, having 65,000 documents, to be submitted to the court.

The investigating agency had recorded the statements of 432 witnesses. In all, it has 1,532 original documents in the lot. Each box is 3 m long and 1.5 feet in width and height and are secured under double lock and key.

Each box required five constables to carry it or tow along the corridor.

According to Lakshminarayana, independent bodies like the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) not finding any role of auditors in the scam would not effect the investigation in any way. It may be recalled that ICAI high power committee which interrogated the three auditors on Sunday said they felt the auditors did not have any role in the scam. "We will depend on our investigation to prove the guilt,'' Lakshminarayana said speaking to the media later.

"These boxes are so heavy and getting them to the third floor (though in the lift) has been a problem,'' said a constable. According to the CBI sleuths, documents relating to each accused have come in two trunks (18 boxes) and one set is for the court and one for the CBI office copy.

Tail piece: The trail of boxes put the judge to some discomfort. There is no place to store so many trunk boxes in the court, he said. If we put all of them here, there would not be any room for ventilation. After a brief intermission, he agreed to take two boxes which has original documents into court's custody.