The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to five people accused in the multi-crore accounting scam at the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services, now called Mahindra Satyam.
They include four former employees — G Ramakrishna, D Venkatapathi Raju, CS Srisailam and former internal auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta —- and S Gopalakrishnan, Satyam’s former auditor and a senior executive of auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
The five had approached the Supreme Court on August 30. A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra granted the bails.
Gopalakrishnan was allowed to go home on production of a personal bond of about Rs2 lakh.
The development could give hope to the three former key executives of Satyam — Ramalinga Raju, his brother and former managing director Rama Raju and former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas — still lodged in the Chanchalguda central prison in Hyderabad.
Two other accused — Raju’s younger brother B Suryanarayana Raju and former PwC executive T Srinivas — were granted bail earlier.
Raju, too, was granted bail earlier by the Andhra Pradesh High Court. However, the bail was cancelled by the apex court and Raju had to surrender in the court only to go behind bars again on November 10, 2010.
He was arrested for his role in the accounting scam on January 9, 2009.
While cancelling the bail pleas, the apex court had said that the accused would become eligible to seek bail if the trial in the case was not completed by July 31, 2011. The trial went beyond that and the five accused sought bail on the ground that the trial was not being conducted as desired by the apex court.
Incidentally, the Telangana agitation has also added to the delay as lawyers have been boycotting court sessions.
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