HC bails out Satyam scam accused Rama Raju

A year after he was booked in the India's biggest corporate fraud case, the Andhra Pradesh high court today granted bail to former Satyam Computer Services managing director Rama Raju, along with former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas and three others accused in the accounting scam.

Justice Raja Elango of the high court granted bail to Rama Raju, brother of Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju, Srinivas, and three other former Satyam employees - G Ramakrishna, Venkatapathi Raju and Ch Srisailam.

With this, all Satyam accused except B Ramalinga Raju have got bail from various courts. Last month, the Andhra Pradesh high court granted bail to former Price Waterhouse auditor S Gopalakrishnana and former internal auditor Prabhakara Gupta. Price Waterhouse is the Indian arm of global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

In February, the Supreme Court had granted bail to another Price Waterhouse auditor, Srinivas Talluri. In March last year, a local Hyderabad court granted anticipatory bail to B Suryanarayana Raju, another brother of Ramalinga Raju.

In January last year Satyam founder and the then chairman Ramalinga Raju and nine others were arrested after Raju admitted to fudging the accounting books of the information technology company, which was later taken over by the Mahindra & Mahindra group and renamed Mahindra Satyam.

Earlier, solicitor general of India Gopal Subrahmaniam urged the court not to grant bail to any of the key accused, as it would result in tampering with evidence and influencing the witnesses. The high court last month rejected the bail plea of Ramalinga Raju.