Satyam Case: Special Court Postpones Verdict to April 9

Hyderabad: A special court on Monday postponed its verdict in the multi-billion dollar Satyam fraud case to April 9.

The six-year-old case rattled the corporate world after its founder and former chairman Ramalinga Raju on January 7, 2009, confessed to manipulating Satyam's account books and inflating profits over many years to the tune of Rs.7,136 crore. The Central Bureau of Investigation probing the case said that the fraud was much bigger and alleged that the scam caused a loss of Rs 14,000 crore to shareholders of Satyam.

After the fraud came to light, the government suspended the company's board of directors and appointed industry experts to steer the firm out of the woods. Satyam was later sold to Tech Mahindra which has since then merged it.

Besides Mr Raju, the nine others accused in the case include his brother and Satyam's former managing director B Rama Raju, former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas.

Mr Raju and others were charged with offences like cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breach of trust under relevant sections of IPC, for inflating invoices and incomes, account falsification, faking fixed deposits, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various income tax laws. (With Agency Inputs)