Hyderabad.
All the 10 people including B Ramalinga Raju and his brother B Rama Raju have been granted bail in the multi-crore Satyam Computer Services Ltd (SCSL) accounting fraud case.
The bail has been granted by Metropolitan Sessions Court in Hyderabad. On Friday, the court deferred the verdict on an application filed by the 10 convicts seeking suspension of their sentence and revocation of fines imposed in the multi-crore accounting fraud case.
It may be recalled that on April 9, the ACMM court, which tried the Satyam corporate fraud case probed by CBI, sentenced Raju and others to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for criminal conspiracy and cheating, among other offences.
It had also imposed Rs 5.35 crore fine on Raju and his brother Rama Raju while others were fined Rs 25 lakh each.
Raju, the self confessed kingpin of the scam, and nine other convicts, currently lodged in Cherlapally Central Prison, had filed the appeals and applications in the MSJ court on Monday, challenging their conviction, besides sentences and fines imposed by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court (ACMM) in the over Rs 7,000-crore scandal that came to light in 2009, and enlarging them on bail.
The local court earlier had deferred its order to to May 11 its order on the application .
The counsel of Raju and others submitted before the court that their clients had already served a “substantial part” of their imprisonment by spending 35 months in jail and requested it for suspension of their sentences.
While expressing their inability to pay the huge penalty, they further contended that the fines imposed on them were also “exorbitant” and now they have no source of income as all their bank accounts have been frozen by CBI and their properties attached by ED and they have no monetary means of paying the fine.
The court, is scheduled to hear the appeals filed by Raju and nine other convicts challenging the ACCM’s court’s verdict on convicting them in a month’s time.
