Family members of Satyam Computers' Raju not complicit in fraud: SC

Ramalinga Raju (C), founder and former chairman of fraud-hit Satyam Computers, is escorted from a court in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad April 9, 2009. India's federal crime bureau has filed charged against nine people including Raju for alleged involvement in accounting fraud at the outsourcing firm. REUTERS/Krishnendu Halder (INDIA CONFLICT SOCIETY SCI TECH) - GM1E5491KP701

The Supreme Court on Monday said family members of B Ramalinga Raju, the founder of Satyam Computers, were not complicit in the fraud he committed.

The Apex Court set aside Securities Appellate Tribunal’s order that had said that Raju’s family members including his mother, brother and son were also guilty in the multi-crore scam as they were whole time directors at the information technology services firm.

“This appellant’s case, therefore, stands apart from the other family members of B. Ramalinga Raju, in that the SFIO’s report as well as the aforesaid judgment clearly and unmistakably point to his complicity, unlike that of the other family members, in the fraud committed from 2001 onwards,” the Supreme Court noted in a May 14 order.

Ramalinga Raju, in his initial email to the Securities Exchange Board of India and the Board of Satyam, had said the books of the company were inflated since several years but his family members had no idea about the fraud.

The regulator found the books to have been manipulated between 2001 and 2008.

In 2015, SEBI asked ten people, including B Ramalinga Raju, connected to the Satyam scam, to cough up penalties of over Rs 1,800 crore as the regulator viewed these as “ill-gotten gains”.