Rajus' custody extended till Feb 7

The sixth additional chief metropolitan magistrate on Saturday extended the judicial custody of Satyam Computer Services founder B Ramalinga Raju, his brother Rama Raju and former chief financial officer of the company Srinivas Vadlamani till February 7. Their custody ended today and the judicial custody was extended through a video conference.

The magistrate also sent Gopalakrishnam Raju, general manager of SRSR Holdings, to judicial remand till February 7 after the two-day police custody ended today. The police took him under custody for questioning about the land transactions of the Raju brothers. K Ravinder Reddy, his counsel, said that he would move a bail petition on Monday.

On the same day, the bail pleas of PW auditors S Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas would also come up.

Public prosecutor Ajay Kumar and counsel Mastan Naidu Cherukuri have already presented their arguments on the bail issue and the court reserved its orders for February 2.

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

In a related development, the Enforcement Directorate of the Finance Ministry yesterday filed an enforcement case information report (ECIR) against the Raju brothers and Vadlamani before the metropolitan sessions judge at Nampally.

According to special prosecutor P Prasad, the directorate had filed ECIR under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

According to information, the enforcement officials can question the accused, conduct searches on their premises and seize documents under the provisions of the Income-Tax Act, 1961, and attach properties through an adjudicating authority. The confessions statements of the accused are admissible. In these cases, the burden lies on the accused to disprove charges as compared with the normal cases where the onus in on the prosecution to prove charges against the accused.

Already, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, IT department along with the CID, Registrar of Companies, Stamps and Registration departments in the state have launched independent investigations into the Satyam fiasco.