NCLT refuses to pass order against Ramalinga Raju’s sons

Hyderabad: The National Company Law Tribunal in Hyderabad has refused to pass any restraint order against Maytas directors B Teja Raju and Rama Raju, sons of Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju. A tribunal bench comprising NVR Badarinath, judicial member, and Charan Singh, technical member, turned down the 15-year-old request of the Union corporate affairs ministry, which was citing Satyam scam perpetrated by Ramalinga Raju and was seeking orders that prevent the junior Rajus from becoming directors in any other companies. The tribunal in its order said that Ramalinga Raju tried to cover the Satyam scam with Maytas assets to clean the slate. As that could not be done, the Satyam scam surfaced and Raju faced the penal consequences that flowed from the scam. But the bench refused to believe the argument of the Union ministry that junior Rajus were aware of their father's plan to merge Maytas with Satyam to fill the gulf created through Satyam's unreal assets with that of the real assets of Maytas. Similarly, the NCLT bench also refused to pass any restraint order in respect of Satyam's independent directors Krishna G Palepu and Vinod K Dham, both currently living in the US. "They derived their salaries and perks running into crores during their stint with Satyam without any knowledge about the scam," the bench said. They too cannot be prevented from holding director posts in other companies. The corporate affairs ministry filed these pleas 15 years ago before the company law board immediately after the Satyam scam broke out. Later CLB ceased to exist and NCLTs came in their place. The NCLT bench said it cannot agree with the findings given by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office in respect of the four directors of Satyam and Maytas and rejected the requests of the Union ministry.