Ramalinga Raju

An Indian court of Hyderabad on Wednesday has granted bail to the former chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd., B. Ramalinga Raju, who was allegedly considered as the main culprit behind the scam and  has been kept in  custody for more than a year-and-a-half.

“The trial court has directed to release him (Ramalinga Raju) on furnishing of two sureties of 2 million rupees each and the petitioner (Raju) is directed to cooperate with the investigation and trial,” Bharat Kumar, counsel for Ramalinga Raju, told reporters outside the courtroom.

Mr. Raju, who is not keeping well has been shuttling between hospital and India’s federal investigating agency–the Central Bureau of Investigation—after every treatment, Mr. Kumar added.

Mr. Raju was put in jail a few days after he confessed in early January 2009.
After a brief period spent in a special cell he was moved to a hospital owing to his bad health. A spokes person refused to comment when asked if the CBI would appeal against the bail decision in a higher court, citing the reason as sub judice.

However, CNBC TV-18 reported that CBI would appeal. The CBI, had worked on this case since the Day 1 and estimated the scandal was worth 118.8 billion ruppes. The nine co-accused in the Satyam scam–former Satyam managing director B. Rama Raju, former chief financial officer S. Vadlamani, external auditors S. Gopalakrishnan and S. Talluri, B. Suryanarayana Raju, G. Ramakrishna, D. Venkatapathy Raju and Srisailam and Satyam’s global head of internal audit, V. S. Prabhakar Gupta–are already out on bail.

Though, the exact reasons for the bail have not been revealed. After the scandal Satyam has been taken by Mhindra and now is known by the name of Mahindra Satyam.