Raju bail petition deferred to Jan 22

The bail petition moved by the counsel of Satyam Computer Services founder B Ramalinga Raju, his brother and Managing Director B Rama Raju and former Chief Financial Officer Srinivas Vadlamani, and the plea by the Securities and Exchange of Board of India (Sebi) seeking court's permission to record the statements of the accused, have been posted to January 22.

The pleas came up for hearing on Monday at Nampally court. The hearings were earlier posted to January 16.

Raju’s counsel, arguing that there is no need for the lower court awarding police custody to the Raju brother and Vadlamani till January 22, filed a revision petition with the high court challenging the same. “It will come up for hearing at 2.30 pm today,” he said.

Meanwhile, Satyam's counsel S Bharath Kumar filed a petition with the sixth additional metropolitan magistrate to provide special facilities to Raju and his aides at Chanchalguda jail. The hearing of this plea has also been posted to January 22.

Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju were arrested on January 9 on charges of the Rs 7,800-crore financial fraud, while Vadlamani was in judicial remand after his arrest on January 10.

They were booked on non-bailable charges under IPC sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 468 (forgery) and 471 (falsification of records).

The three have been lodged in the Chanchalguda jail and have been categorised ‘C’ category inmates and the jail authorities did not extend any additional facilities to them. They, however, moved them to a different cubicle as they became the topic of discussion of other inmates.