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Ramalinga Raju surrenders to police

Ramalinga Raju

HYDERABAD: Climaxing three weeks of high corporate drama, the former chairman of Satyam Computer Services, B. Ramalinga Raju, and his brother and former Managing Director, B. Rama Raju, accompanied by three close relatives, surrendered to the police on Friday night.

They gave themselves up on realising that their arrest was inevitable after the Criminal Investigation Department of the Andhra Pradesh police began closing in on them. Police registered cases against the two Rajus under Indian Penal Code Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 417 (punishment for cheating), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document).

Mr. Ramalinga Raju and others drove to the office of the Director-General of Police around 10 p.m. as officials of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and the police began tightening the noose after his shocking confession that he had fudged accounts to the tune of over Rs. 7,100 crore. Police refused to divulge details, though DGP S.S.P. Yadav claimed that Mr. Raju was arrested and had not given himself up voluntarily.

The arrests did little to deflect criticism that the Rajasekhara Reddy government was going slow on the investigations into Mr. Raju’s misdeeds, coming as they did more than 60 hours after he resigned from the company’s board of directors and admitted to cooking up the account books. Opposition leaders alleged that Mr. Reddy was shielding Mr. Raju because Satyam and Maytas Infra had projects worth over Rs. 30,000 crores under way the State. Police failed to locate Chief Financial Officer Srinivas Vadlamani, who was not given a clean chit in Mr. Raju’s confession.

Ahead of his arrest, Mr. Raju ran into further trouble when SEBI investigators asked him to appear before them at 4 p.m. on Saturday. Separately, a team of officials from the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), which arrived here on Friday morning, visited the RoC and perused records already seized.

Mr. Raju deputed his advocate, S. Bharat Kumar, to represent him before the three-member SEBI team led by A. Sunil Kumar at 4 p.m. on Friday. The advocate expressed inability to furnish the numerous documents sought by SEBI, as the summons was served at short notice. He sought three days’ time to answer the queries.

The SEBI team, however, asked him to ensure Mr. Ramalinga Raju was present on Saturday.