Satyam Founder Ramalinga Raju Found Guilty In India's Largest Corporate Scandal
Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju has been found guilty by a Hyderabad court of criminal cheating and conspiracy in what is described as India's largest-ever corporate scandal.
Mr Raju, his brother B Rama Raju and eight others, including some aides, were convicted in the accounting fraud case, worth Rs 14,000 crore according to investigators. Their sentence has not yet been announced.
"All the accused have been convicted of almost all charges," prosecutor K. Surender told reporters outside the court.
Mr Raju, 60, spent nearly three years in jail before being granted bail. The trial has spanned six years. The CBI has handled the investigation.
Satyam Computer Services was at one time considered the gold standard for an outsourcing company. The scandal, which erupted during the IT industry's early boom in India, forced the spotlight on corporate governance.
In 2009, Mr Raju, who founded Satyam as a family business with his brother and brother-in-law in 1987, said about $1 billion or 94 per cent of the cash on the company's books was fictitious. Investors were shocked by the revelations that the firm's profits had been overstated for years and assets falsified.
In a confessional letter to shareholders in 2009, Mr Raju wrote: "The concern was that poor performance would result in a takeover" and "It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten." He later retracted that statement.
Satyam rose to prominence in the late 1990s when Mr Raju was among the first to spot outsourcing opportunities in the year 2000 rollover problem, which saw the coming of age of the software outsourcing industry.
