Court hearing Satyam case loses special status

The exclusive court set up by the government to handle the multi-crore Satyam accounting scam will no longer enjoy ‘special’ status, following an amendment to the government’s 2009 order.

Given the importance of the Satyam case and the way the international investor community was focusing on the issue, the state government had issued an order last year appointing a court under an Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) to handle the case.

The idea of the special court came up because of the number of pending cases in other courts and the time these courts would be able to spare for the Satyam case.

“It was felt that there was a need for an exclusive court to take the Satyam case to a logical end. After the case was handed over to the CBI and a multi-disciplinary investigation team (MDIT) was constituted to understand the magnitude of the scam, the appointment of a special court was thought to be a right decision,” a source associated with the developments said.

However, one of the 10 accused in the Satyam scam challenged the government’s decision to have a special court. While the writ filed on this issue is still pending, the government has made amendments to the earlier order and deleted certain portions of it.

The earlier order had clearly mentioned that the ACMM court was for handling the Satyam scam. However, the amendment has dropped the words ‘Satyam scam’, making the court just another ACMM court. Currently, the criminal courts complex in Hyderabad has about 23 courts and the court trying the Satyam scam would get added to the list.

“With the amendment, the chief metropolitan magistrate is free to hand over any other case to the ACMM court earlier designated for Satyam,” the source said.

In fact, the issue of a special court for this case alone has been a point of discussion among legal professionals for some time now.

According to them, a special court would not stand unless the accused are charged under special Acts. “In Harshad Mehta’s case, it was the Securitisation Act.

In other cases, for instance involving terrorist activities, there is TADA and a TADA court is maintainable. For economic offices, there are special Acts and a special court for those offences can be set up. In Satyam case, the accused are primarily charged under the IPC and all the courts in the criminal courts complex are meant for handling the IPC related cases,” a senior criminal law practitioner said.