The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Orders on bail of Rajus today

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Orders on bail of Rajus today

CBI appeals against grant of bail to three prime accused in Satyam case

Raju brothers, Vadlamani “highly influential”, says CBI
They can “manage things” if set free: public prosecutor

HYDERABAD: A city court reserved its orders on the petitions for grant of bail to the main accused in multi-million dollar Satyam scam for Wednesday even as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI ) lawyer appealed against enlarging the accused as they “can damage the evidence and prevent the truth from coming out”.

Arguing for the CBI, public prosecutor B. Ravindranath expressed apprehensions that the main accused Satyam ex-boss B. Ramalinga Raju, his brother B. Rama Raju and ex-Chief Financial Officer Srinivas Vadlamani were “highly influential” and “can manage things anyway” if set free.

A case of deception for diversification of money was already established and the CBI should be allowed to continue further investigation to ascertain the real motives behind the inflation of balance sheets.

Mr. Ravindranath was putting forth his argument when the case came up in the court of the fourth additional metropolitan sessions judge T. Eshwara Rao here on Tuesday.

He dismissed the contention of the defence lawyers that Raju brothers mobilised loans, besides pledging their own shares for pumping in money to run the company claiming they had done so to remain in their positions in the scam-tainted company.

He dismissed the defence counsels’ claims that cases on the Raju brothers would not attract provisions of Section 420 (cheating) and Section 467 (forgery) as they had inflated figures for running the company and making it stand in the market.

The former CFO was made a co-conspirator as he signed the account books knowing fully well about the fudging of accounts.

He made light of the contentions that there was neither misappropriation nor intentions to cheat the people as the amounts and fixed deposits mentioned in the charge sheet were ‘non-existent’.

The profits were inflated to enhance the value of shares that were off-loaded by the accused at opportune moments for profits.

Bail petition

Arguing on behalf of Mr. Ramalinga Raju earlier, defence counsel Prakash Reddy said his client had been in custody for over 120 days and there was no reason to detain him after the police investigation was completed.

Defence counsel Nalin Kumar who moved the bail petition on behalf of Mr. Vadlamani said there was no scope for tampering of the evidence by his client as all the documents, hard discs and relevant material had been seized by the investigating agencies.

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