Satyam case: Raju appears in court on money-laundering charges

Satyam Computer Services founder Ramalinga Raju and another accused appeared before a court in Hyderabad in connection with a prosecution complaint filed by Enforcement Directorate against them for offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The Enforcement Directorate in October last year had filed the complaint against Raju and 212 others, including 166 companies, before the XXI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court cum Special Sessions Judge here for allegedly laundering funds under a ‘corporate veil’ to perpetrate the accounting scam that rocked the business world in 2009.

ED in its prosecution investigation report sought to ‘prosecute the accused for offence of money laundering’ under PMLA.

The court subsequently took cognisance of the complaint and had issued summons against the accused seeking their appearance and accordingly they did so on Friday.

The ED report said that Ramalinga Raju and the other accused, who have also been probed by CBI, "derived proceeds of crime from the sale and pledge of inflated shares of M/s Satyam Computers and Services Ltd".

The prosecution complaint (charge sheet), names 213 accused -- 47 individuals (among them Ramalinga Raju and nine other accused already named in the CBI charge sheet in the multi-crore Satyam accounting fraud case) and 166 firms -- including SCSL.

Besides, Raju, the former chairman of Satyam Computers, his brother B Suryanarayana Raju, Satyam's former MD B Rama Raju, ex-CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan, T Srinivas and Satyam's former internal chief auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta were among others who appeared in the court and executed personal bonds of Rs 10,000 each.

The court then posted the matter to May 5 and directed to serve copies of the prosecution complaint and other related documents to the accused.

ED which had earlier interrogated prime accused Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, and the others had registered a case against the Satyam founder and his family under PMLA, which defines money laundering offences as those involving money derived from any activity connected with the proceeds of crime.

The Act provides for the freezing and seizure of the proceeds of crime.

So far, 350 immovable and five movable properties, valued at a cumulative Rs 1,075 crore (Rs 10.75 billion), have been attached in the case, ED had said.

Image: B Ramalinga Raju