SC grants bail to Ramalinga Raju,two others

The Supreme Court granted bail to B Ramalinga Raju,former chairman of Satyam Computers,his brother B Rama Raju and Vadlamani Srinivas,the chief financial officer of the firm.

The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to B Ramalinga Raju,former chairman of Satyam Computers,his brother B Rama Raju and Vadlamani Srinivas,the chief financial officer of the firm.

The trio,accused in the Satyam accounting fraud case,had spent over two-and-a-half years in prison.

A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra reasoned that the Rajus should be allowed bail on the facts of the case and the time already spent in jail,particularly almost the entire prison term of two years and eight months. Their alleged offences carrying a maximum punishment of seven years.

Story continues below this ad

The court ordered their release on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh each,with two sureties of the same amount. They would have to surrender their passports at the trial court in Andhra Pradesh,which has been directed to expedite the trial.

On October 12,the apex court had granted bail to four Satyam employees former internal chief auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta,executives G Ramakrishna,D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam besides PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) former auditor Subramani Gopalakrishnan. Ramalinga Rajus younger brother B Suryanarayana Raju and former PWC auditor T Srinivas had been granted bail by different courts earlier.

Ramalinga Raju had been arrested first in January 2009. His bail was cancelled in October last year by the Supreme Court,which said that he could file another bail application only after July 31,if in case the trial was not completed in the local court.

Following cancellation of his bail,Ramalinga Raju had surrendered on November 10,last year before the trial court.