CBI files chargesheet against Raju, others

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the Rs 7,800 crore financial scandal at Satyam Computer Services, today filed a chargesheet against nine accused in the case.

CBI named Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju, his brothers B Rama Raju and B Suryanaryana Raju, former chief financial officer Srinivas Vadlamani, Price Waterhouse (PW) auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri, Vice-President (Finance) G Ramakrishna and two other employees, Venkatapathy Raju and Srisailam, in the chargesheet.

PW India said it was “surprised and disappointed” that CBI had pressed charges against its partners.

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

CBI Deputy Inspector General V Lakshminarayana said the agency had found evidence against the accused. “We will file supplementary chargesheets as and when we get more evidence,” he said.

CBI filed a 300-page document before the court, giving the summary of the case facts and the annexures. In all, it brought in 22 trunkloads of documents, which numbered 65,000. The agency has recorded the statements of 432 witnesses. In all, it has 1,532 original documents in the lot.

Lakshminarayana said the fact that the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) did not find any role of the auditors in the scam would not effect the investigation. It might be recalled that the ICAI’s high-powered committee, which interrogated the three auditors on Sunday, had said they felt that the auditors did not have any role in the scam. “We will depend on our investigation to prove the guilt,” said Lakshminarayana.

Meanwhile, UNITES, the union which represents the workers in the IT and ITeS sector in India, has requested the Election Commission to shelve the Satyam sale process until a new government took over and the investigations being carried out by the CBI reached a conclusion.