Satyam case verdict deferred till March 9

Special Judge B.V.L.N. Chakravarthi deferred the verdict, citing the voluminous documents of the case.

K. Surender, special public prosecutor, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which probed the case, told reporters that the court would now pronounce the verdict March 9, 2015.

The court was expected to pronounce Tuesday the verdict in what is billed to be the country's biggest accounting fraud that left the corporate world stunned in 2009.

All 10 accused, including the prime accused B. Ramalinga Raju, the Satyam Computer Services Limited's founder and former chairman, appeared in the court Tuesday.

The judge told the prosecution and defence counsels that he required more time to pronounce the verdict. He said typing the order itself may take two to three weeks.

The scam came to light Jan 7, 2009, when Ramalinga Raju confessed that the company's account books and profits were inflated over many years to the tune of several crores of rupees.

The CBI put the loss to the shareholders at Rs.14,000 crore. The investigating agency also charged Raju with gaining Rs.2,500 crore by selling his family shares in Satyam.

Raju was charged with floating several front companies to buy land with the scam money as well. He was arrested by Andhra Pradesh Police Jan 9, 2009.

The CBI, which later took up the investigations, filed three chargesheets against Raju and the other accused, charging them with cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery, falsification of accounts and breach of trust.

Raju, who was released on bail, later retracted his confession and contended that all the charges levelled against him were false.

The others accused in the case are Raju's brothers B. Rama Raju and B. Suryanarayana Raju, Satyam's former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas, former PricewaterhouseCoopers auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T. Srinivas, former employees G. Ramakrishna, D. Venkatpathi Raju and Ch. Srisailam, and Satyam's former internal chief auditor V.S. Prabhakar Gupta.

After the scam, Tech Mahindra took over Satyam Computers in a government sponsored auction. Mahindra Satyam later merged with Tech Mahindra.

An economic offences court Dec 8 sentenced Ramalinga Raju and three others to six months imprisonment, in six of the seven cases filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO).