Andhra High Court dismisses Raju’s revision petition

HYDERABAD - The Andhra Pradesh High Court Monday dismissed a revision petition of disgraced founder and former chairman of Satyam Computer Services B. Ramalinga Raju and two others, challenging a lower court’s order remanding them to police custody.

Ramalinga Raju’s lawyer S. Bharat Kumar told reporters that the single-judge bench of the high court upheld the order of the lower court and ruled that their interrogation by Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Andhra Pradesh police would continue.

The lawyers of Ramalinga Raju, his brother and former managing director B. Rama Raju and former chief financial officer (CFO) Vadlamani Srinivas, who were Saturday sent to CID custody for four days, challenged the ruling on the ground that their interrogation was not required.

Their lawyers argued that CID had already seized documents from the offices and houses of their clients and that their interrogation was not required. They submitted that the magistrate did not take their arguments into consideration while passing the orders.

Sixth additional chief metropolitan magistrate D. Ramakrishna had Saturday remanded the three accused to police custody.

The CID of the Andhra Pradesh police, which is probing the Rs.70 billion (Rs.7,000 crore/ $1.43 billion) fraud, took the three accused into its custody Sunday and was questioning them for the second day Monday at the CID office here.

Meanwhile, the magistrate adjourned hearing on the bail petition of all three accused to Jan 22.

The court also adjourned the hearing on the petition of market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), seeking permission to question Ramalinga Raju and also on Raju’s petition seeking special status in jail.

Since the accused were Saturday remanded to police custody by the court for four days, the hearing on both the petitions was adjourned.

SEBI had moved the petition Jan 12 seeking permission to question Raju and the magistrate, after hearing the arguments from both sides Jan 16, had posted the matter for orders on Monday.

Raju’s counsel had already argued before the court that there was no need for his client to appear before SEBI as the latter already had seized all the documents.

But the SEBI lawyer alleged that Raju was trying to avoid questioning by the market watchdog.

On Jan 9, two days after Raju quit as chairman admitting the massive fraud, SEBI had served summons on him. Though Raju’s lawyer had informed SEBI that he would appear the next day, a few hours later the former Satyam boss and his brother surrendered to the police.

The Raju brothers were arrested Jan 9 and the former CFO the next day.

All three were originally remanded to judicial custody till Jan 23.