Satyam case: Ramalinga Raju, 9 others get bail, sentences suspended by court

HYDERABAD: In a relief to Ramalinga Raju and nine co-convicts in India’s largest accounting fraud at software outsourcer Satyam Computer Services, a sessions court in Hyderabad on Monday granted bail, while suspending the sentence pronounced by the CBI court last month.

The metropolitan-cum-economic-offences court magistrate M Laxman, who has passed interim orders on a bail plea filed by the convicts, has however asked all the convicts to pay one-tenth of the penalty imposed by the CBI court.

After 50 months of trial process, the CBI trial court on April 9 had sentenced all the convicts to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed penalties ranging from Rs 30 lakh to Rs 5 crore each.

Contesting the sentence and penalties, Raju and nine co-convicts filed petitions in the sessions court for suspension of sentence and expressed their financial inability to pay penalties in view of multiple prosecutions launched against them and attachment of their properties. While asking Raju and his brother Rama Raju to furnish bonds of Rs 1 lakh each to avail bail, the judge ordered other eight co-convicts to submit bonds for Rs 50,000 each. The court has given four weeks of time for the convicts to pay the slashed penalties.