Satyam paid Rs 126.57 cr as I-T on non-existent revenues: CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation has charged Satyam Computer Services founder B Ramalinga Raju and his five aides with squandering about Rs 126.57 crore "investor money" by paying income tax on non-existent revenues, which resulted due to inflating revenue figures.

The CBI, which is investigating the Satyam accounting fraud case, filed its third chargesheet on Thursday before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate court in Hyderabad.

It charged Raju and others, including former managing director B Rama Raju, former chief financial officer Srinivas Vadlamani and two Price Waterhouse auditors Srinivas Talluri and S Gopalakrishnan, with criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B ), criminal breach of trust (Section 409 ), cheating, (Section 409), forgery for the purpose of cheating (467 and 468), use of forged documents (471) and falsification of accounts (477-A ) of the Indian Penal Code.

The 30-page chargesheet cited 32 documents and 26 witnesses. The entire documentation ran into 3,552 pages. The CBI had filed its first chargesheet on April 7 and the supplementary chargesheet on November 24, last year.

The CBI said the accused had inflated the revenue of the company by infusing fictitious sales invoices and showed them as deposited in various scheduled banks. Due to the inflated revenue and interest accruing on it, the company had a tax liability to the tune of Rs 526.37 crore.

Satyam then took recourse to the provisions of Section 90 and 91 of the Income Tax Act to show higher tax remittances in foreign countries and get relief from the tax chargeable in India.

Correspondingly, while filing the tax returns in foreign countries the non-existent income and the purported interest on fixed deposits were not included in the income declared to the tax authorities in those countries and no additional tax was paid.

In doing so, tax remittances to the tune of Rs 329.58 crore were shown as if paid in overseas tax remittances while filing returns in India.

The accused have "dishonestly" made tax payments by way of self assessment tax and in some cases have not made lawful claim for refund of tax deducted at source, the CBI said.