Court defers Raju's bail plea

A city court today deferred till January 16 hearing on bail applications filed by Satyam's three disgraced executives, including Ramalinga Raju, as also market regulator Sebi's plea for quizzing Raju.

Hearing on the bail plea will be taken up by the 6th Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on January 16, Raju's lawyer Bharat Kumar told reporters, adding that a team of 25 lawyers has been put together to defend Raju and others.

Besides Raju, his brother Rama Raju and Satyam's CFO Vadlamani Srinivas too are in judicial custody till January 23 and are lodged in the Chanchalguda central prison. Sebi too had filed a petition seeking the court's nod for interrogating Raju and the two others while they are in judicial custody, but Raju's lawyer sought a day's time to file a counter petition. Following this, the court posted the matter for hearing on January 16.

The Rajus were arrested by the state CB-CID police on Friday, two days after Ramalinga disclosed a Rs 7,800 financial fraud in Satyam founded by him in 1987. Vadlamani Srinivas was arrested on Saturday.

Separate teams from Sebi and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office of the Corporate Affairs Ministry are camping in the city to interrogate Raju. While Sebi has been questioning the company's dislodged interim CEO Ram Mynampati for a while now, the CB-CID police has launched searches in the houses of the Rajus and Srinivas.