One year, seven months and eleven days after he had confessed to cooking the books of accounts of Satyam on January 7, 2009, Ramalinga Raju got bail from the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday. Justice Raja Elango ordered that Raju be released on provision of two sureties of Rs 20 lakh each.
The judge granted the bail to Raju as he was not convinced that the trial in the case would be completed in six months as had been argued by the counsel for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The other nine co-accused in the Satyam case — Raju’s younger brother Rama Raju, Satyam’s former chief financial officer Srinivas Vadlamani, other junior officials of Satyam and PriceWaterHouse Coopers auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri — are already out on bail.
After availing of his bail - the process might take another day or two - Raju will not come out of jail. He has been in the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (Nims) since September 2009, undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C. Raju was admitted to hospital conicidentally a few days after chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy died in a copter crash. Raju has been suffering from Hepatitis C since 2001 and the doctors have not sent him back to jail saying that it would affect the treatment. How they are going to send him home now remains to be seen, although in a press conference shortly after the bail announcement, the doctors seemed to be changing stance.
"If he wants to go home, how can we stop him?" they asked. All this while, the CBI had been sceptical about the claims of the doctors and had wanted independent medical opinion. The Nims doctors’ report had, however, ensured that Raju did not ever visit the court - where the trial was just beginning. On Wednesday, the doctors said that they suspected that Raju was in the early stages of liver cirrhosis.
Whether Raju will choose to go home also remains to be a matter of speculation as the judge has made daily attendance before the CBI and trial court a part of the bail order. "It is generally believed that Raju is having a rocking time in hospital. Daily visits to the CBI office and trial court may become cumbersome. His earlier nine months in jail were seen to be easy what with a badminton court having been built for him. He was also allowed to enjoy other comforts.
The trial in the CBI special court is on the three chargesheets filed by the CBI. The Enforcement Directorate which is separately investigating the cases is yet to file any charge sheet. The agency is waiting for responses to its letter rogatories sent to 60 countries. Justice Elango was of the view that the answers for these queries might take up to two years.
Since pre-trial detention is unknown in Indian jurisprudence and the laws of the land allow the accused to get bail, he granted bail to Raju.
The CBI had objected to the bail application also because they feared that an out-of-jail Raju would try to influence the over 200 witnesses who are employees of Satyam. But Justice Elango overlooked this as Satyam is now a company under another management.
This was Raju’s sixth attempt at getting bail. His earlier applications were in the local criminal court, high court and Supreme Court respectively.
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The judge granted the bail to Raju as he was not convinced that the trial in the case would be completed in six months as had been argued by the counsel for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The other nine co-accused in the Satyam case — Raju’s younger brother Rama Raju, Satyam’s former chief financial officer Srinivas Vadlamani, other junior officials of Satyam and PriceWaterHouse Coopers auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri — are already out on bail.
After availing of his bail - the process might take another day or two - Raju will not come out of jail. He has been in the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (Nims) since September 2009, undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C. Raju was admitted to hospital conicidentally a few days after chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy died in a copter crash. Raju has been suffering from Hepatitis C since 2001 and the doctors have not sent him back to jail saying that it would affect the treatment. How they are going to send him home now remains to be seen, although in a press conference shortly after the bail announcement, the doctors seemed to be changing stance.
"If he wants to go home, how can we stop him?" they asked. All this while, the CBI had been sceptical about the claims of the doctors and had wanted independent medical opinion. The Nims doctors’ report had, however, ensured that Raju did not ever visit the court - where the trial was just beginning. On Wednesday, the doctors said that they suspected that Raju was in the early stages of liver cirrhosis.
Whether Raju will choose to go home also remains to be a matter of speculation as the judge has made daily attendance before the CBI and trial court a part of the bail order. "It is generally believed that Raju is having a rocking time in hospital. Daily visits to the CBI office and trial court may become cumbersome. His earlier nine months in jail were seen to be easy what with a badminton court having been built for him. He was also allowed to enjoy other comforts.
The trial in the CBI special court is on the three chargesheets filed by the CBI. The Enforcement Directorate which is separately investigating the cases is yet to file any charge sheet. The agency is waiting for responses to its letter rogatories sent to 60 countries. Justice Elango was of the view that the answers for these queries might take up to two years.
Since pre-trial detention is unknown in Indian jurisprudence and the laws of the land allow the accused to get bail, he granted bail to Raju.
The CBI had objected to the bail application also because they feared that an out-of-jail Raju would try to influence the over 200 witnesses who are employees of Satyam. But Justice Elango overlooked this as Satyam is now a company under another management.
This was Raju’s sixth attempt at getting bail. His earlier applications were in the local criminal court, high court and Supreme Court respectively.
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