Satyam case: AP HC dismisses bail pleas of Raju, 7 others

The Andhra Pradesh High Court today dismissed the bail petitions of B Ramalinga Raju and seven other accused in the multi-crore Satyam Computer accounting fraud.

Justice Samudrala Govindarajulu, who completed the arguments on the bail petitions on August 27, said all the bail applications were dismissed. Of the ten accused in the case, B Suryanarayana Raju, who is Raju's brother, and T Srinivas, a former auditor of PricewaterhouseCoopers, had been granted bail by different courts earlier.

Besides Raju, Satyam's former MD B Rama Raju, ex-CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam, former PWC auditor Subramani Gopalakrishnan and Satyam's former internal chief auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta, are currently lodged in Chanchalguda Central Prison in Hyderabad.

The accused had sought bail on the grounds that the trial in the Satyam scam was not completed within the Supreme Court-stipulated timeline of July 31 and all the prosecution witnesses were examined.

Earlier, cancelling Raju's bail in October last year, the Supreme Court had stated that the accused could file another bail application only after July 31, 2011, if the trial in the case was not completed in the local court.

Sources close to Raju said he and the other accused may approach the Supreme Court for bail. They, however, did not confirm when they are going to file the petition in the apex court.

Raju, the former chairman and founder of Satyam Computer, surrendered on November 10 before the local court adjudicating the nation's biggest corporate fraud, which is allegedly to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore.