Hearing on Raju’s bail petition adjourned to Thursday
By IANSSunday, January 18, 2009
HYDERABAD - A court here Monday adjourned hearing on the bail petition of disgraced founder and former chairman of Satyam Computer Services B. Ramalinga Raju and two others to Jan 22. The three are in police custody now.
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 Ramalinga Raju, his brother and former managing director B. Rama Raju and former chief financial officer (CFO) Vadlamani Srinivas were Saturday remanded to police custody by the court for four days, the hearing on both the petitions were adjourned.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Andhra Pradesh police, which is probing the Rs.70 billion (Rs.7,000 crore or $1.43 billion) fraud, took the three accused into its custody Sunday and was grilling them for the second day Monday at the CID office here.
SEBI had moved the petition seeking permission to question Raju on Jan 12 and sixth additional chief metropolitan magistrate D. Ramakrishna, after hearing the arguments from both sides on 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 Raju to appear before SEBI as the latter already had seized all the documents.
But the SEBI lawyer has 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.
Meanwhile, the lawyers of the accused moved the High Court Monday, challenging the magistrate’s order on their CID custody. The revision petition will come up for hearing later in the day.
The Raju brothers were arrested on Jan 9 and the former CFO the next day.
All three were originally remanded to judicial custody till Jan 23.
