New Delhi, Sep 18 : Unable to stick to the time frame to complete proceedings in the trial against former Satyam chief B Ramalinga Raju and nine others accused in the multi-crore Satyam accounting fraud case, CBI has approached the Supreme Court seeking more time to complete the task. In an interim application filed by the investigating agency, the CBI submitted that it would complete the trial proceedings by the end of October.
While cancelling the bail of Raju, the apex court had directed the agency to complete the proceedings by the end of July.
Besides Raju, his brother B Suryanarayana Raju, Satyam's former MD B Rama Raju, ex-CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Srisailam, former PWC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan, T Srinivas and Satyam's former internal chief auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta, have been made accused in the case. Raju, the former chairman and founder of Satyam Computer, surrendered on November 10 last year before a Hyderabad court adjudicating the nation's biggest corporate fraud, allegedly to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore.
Earlier, cancelling Raju's bail in October, the Supreme Court had stated that the accused could file another bail application only after July 31, if the trial in the case was not completed in the local court.
Raju and six other accused, who are currently lodged in Chanchalguda Central Prison in Hyderabad, had approached the Andhra Pradesh High Court seeking bail on the ground that the CBI could not complete the trail proceedings within the stipulated time.
The High Court, however, refused to grant bail to them. Thereafter four of them approached the apex court which agreed to hear their bail plea and issued notice to the CBI on September 16.
A bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma had directed the CBI to file its reply within two weeks on the bail pleas of Satyam's former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam and Satyam's former internal chief auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta. PTI
