10 years after Satyam, Raju remains patriarch of family-run business empire

Ten years after the Rs 14,000-crore fraud at Satyam Computer Services came to light on January 7, 2009, its founder B Ramalinga Raju, who is out on bail, continues to preside over his family’s thriving business empire. People in the know say that Raju guides his sons and other family members in their business pursuits. He may have lost his public halo, but in private, he continues to indulge his formidable entrepreneurial instincts.   

“Mr Raju is as occupied and busy as he was in his heyday, when he was heading the fourth-largest software services company in the country,” said a consultant close to the Raju family. Apparently, he still meets a steady stream of people at his Jubilee Hills residence in Hyderabad.

However, after the trial court judgment convicted Raju and nine others in 2015 — Raju had admitted to having inflated the revenue figures at Satyam — his public life has been significantly curtailed. Those close to him say he now spends a lot of time in reading and research. Apart from attending functions and weddings of close friends and relatives, he prefers to be away from the public eye. 

His passion for real estate, which was the cause of his undoing, is well chronicled. The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate have attached close to 6,000 acres of land parcels and other properties allegedly owned by Raju through dozens of shell companies. He can access the attached properties only if his conviction is suspended by a higher court. But many in Hyderabad’s business circle say that there are vast tracts of land owned by Raju that are still unidentified, and that they have all turned to gold with the spurt in land prices in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

A spokesperson for the Raju family says the family members of the accused “have faced a lot of flak and are caught in the crossfire for no fault of theirs”. 
 

Ex-Satyam chairman B Ramalinga Raju’s residence in Hyderabad Photo: K Sudheer

Recently, the Supreme Court gave relief to the family members by exonerating them from a case filed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

However, his closest family members are doing just fine. The Raju family is considered to be one of the richest in Hyderabad. Raju’s older son, B Teja Raju, who was vice-chairman of the erstwhile Maytas Infra founded by Raju Senior, runs a company that executes irrigation contracts and other projects in Telangana. Daughter-in-law Sandhya Raju, who is the wife of his second son Rama Raju Junior, set up CallHealth, an integrated healthcare services firm, in 2015. This organisation is headed by an old Satyam hand, Hari Thalapalli.

According to CBI sources, efforts are now on to push for the commencement of arguments in the Satyam case. Three-and-a-half years have passed since the convicts in the case challenged the judgment of the trial court, which had sentenced Raju and nine others to imprisonment. Besides Raju and his two brothers, Rama Raju and Suryanarayana Raju, the court had also sentenced five other senior employees of Satyam Computer, including the then CFO Vadlamani Srinivas. It had also sentenced S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas, who were the two external auditors from the Satyam’s statutory auditing firm Price Waterhouse. 

The arguments are yet to begin from the side of the accused who are the appellants, even though all the 10 convicts had filed separate appeal petitions in the Sessions Court against the lower court’s order. 

The two Price Waterhouse auditors, along with the two internal auditors, have been barred from practice for life by accounting regulator ICAI. 

The senior of the two auditors, S Gopalakrishnan, who is now 68, retired from the audit firm in 2009. Since then, he has been offering consultancy services to friends and associates from the business fraternity, sources said. 

The other auditor, Talluri Srinivas, now in his mid-50s, retired from the audit firm in 2015.  

Apparently, both hope to prove that they were “victims” of the fraud rather than participants in the crime. Both feel that everyone wrongly bought into the conspiracy theory that the auditors were hands-in-glove with the Satyam management. 

“If that were so, Price Waterhouse would not be taking care of their legal expenses — instead, it would have sued the two,” the source said.  

The auditors have claimed in the courts that they had no knowledge of the fraud till the confession from Raju came about. They maintain that the fraud was carried out so as to circumvent the audit process by creating a false audit trail.

As for ex-Satyam CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, he was in the job market sometime back. According to a source, Srinivas has moved from his residence in upscale Jubilee Hills back to his old house in the city. 

Legal experts feel that the case could take another six to 10 years to be resolved. 

They say that all sides, including the investigative agencies, are bound to file revision petitions to the level of the Supreme Court, depending upon future court verdicts in the case.

SATYAM SAGA
 
Jan 7, 2009: Satyam Computer Services Chairman B Ramalinga Raju admits accounting fraud, resigns

Jan 9: Andhra Pradesh CID registers an FIR and arrests Raju on charges of cheating and forgery

Feb 20: CBI takes over the case

Apr 7: CBI files charge sheet naming Ramalinga Raju and eight others, including his brother Rama Raju

Apr 14: Tech Mahindra acquires 51% stake in Satyam for Rs 2,889 crore

Jun 15, 2013: Merger of Tech Mahindra and Satyam announced

Dec 9, 2014: Special court for economic offenses awards six-month jail term to Raju for violations of the Companies Act

Apr 9, 2015: Special CBI court sentences Ramalinga Raju, nine others to 7-year rigorous imprisonment under IPC provisions

May 5: Raju, others challenge the trial court judgment in Sessions court; subsequently released on bail with suspension of sentence