Raju's wife, cousin provide sureties

A day after the Andhra Pradesh High Court allowed conditional bail to Satyam Computer Services Limited founder B Ramalinga Raju, his wife Nandini Raju and cousin Satyanarayana Raju furnished the sureties on Thursday at the special court set up to try the multi-crore scam case.

The HC while granting bail to Raju yesterday had asked him to provide two sureties for Rs 20 lakh each.

Senior counsel N Nataraja, who argued for Raju, pointed out that the Supreme Court, while adjudicating the bail application of co-accused Srinivas Talluri, PW auditor, had observed that whatever the reasons were, the police were not justified in keep him in jail for one year without any development in the case.

The additional solicitor general, who argued for the CBI, said the bail plea was not maintainable as Raju should have moved the Supreme Court and not the high court.

High court judge Justice Elango observed that Raju was in judicial custody for 1 year, 7 months and 10 days after he was arrested on January 9, 2009. Long duration of incarceration amounted to pre-trial detention, which was unknown to the criminal justice system in India.

Meanwhile, the special court today posted the hearing of arguments on framing of charges against Raju and other accused to August 24.