Court rejects Sebi, SFIO plea

HYDERABAD: Citing technical grounds, a Hyderabad court on Friday rejected the applications of Sebi and the serious fraud investigation office (SFIO) which sought the court's permission to question and record the statements of Satyam scam accused B Ramalinga Raju, his brother Rama Raju and their CFO Vadlamani Srinivas.
While maintainability stood as an obstacle for Sebi, the non quoting of relevant provisions of law is stated to be the reason behind the rejection of the SFIO petition.Sixth additional chief metropolitan magistrate D Ramakrishna then directed SFIO counsel P Ravinder Reddy to file a fresh application by quoting the correct provisions of the law. The SFIO sought six days (two days for each accused) for questioning all the three accused under section 240 (2) of the companies Act, 1956.
Meanwhile, the court reserved its orders to January 27 on Rama Raju's bail petition which was opposed by the prosecution on the grounds that since Rama Raju is highly influential, he will create hurdles to the investigation if he is set free at this stage. The bail petitions of Ramalinga Raju and Srinivas were posted to January 28 for hearing. The CID has produced both Ramalinga Raju and Srinivas before the magistrate at 4pm on Friday after its custody period was over.
The magistrate asked both Raju and Srinivas whether they were ill treated by the police, to which the duo replied in the negative. Raju appeared dull and weak when he was brought to the court. The magistrate has sent them to judicial remand upto January 31.
The proceedings in the criminal court on Friday brought to the fore two more banks, BNP Paribas and Bank of Baroda, in connection with Satyam's alleged bogus fixed deposits running into thousands of crores of rupees. Citing these frauds, the serious fraud investigation office (SFIO) sought the permission of the court to record the statements of Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced chairman of Satyam computers, his brother Rama Raju and CFO Vadlamani Srinivas.
As per SFIO petition, Satyam has shown in its accounts that it has Rs 1,733 crore balance in Bank of Baroda's New York branch which was found out to be a non-existent one. Similarly, while opposing the bail application of Rama Raju, CID special public prosecutor K Ajay Kumar told the court that the investigating agency has come across another such alleged transaction running into several hundreds of crores of rupees with BNP Paribas bank. In fact, Satyam's transactions with BNP Paribas were nil after 2004 but its balance sheet showed huge bogus FDs with the bank.