Finally CBI to file Satyam charge sheet on April 9

CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) will file April 9 its first charge sheet in the Rs.78 billion Satyam fraud, which surfaced in January shocking India Inc.

'We are going to file the first charge sheet April 9,' CBI director Ashwini Kumar told reporters here. Last month, the CBI accused Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju, his brother and another arrested official of 'not sharing everything' in connection with the multi-billion dollar fraud in the IT major. The probe agency wanted them to go through a lie-detector test.

The probe agency said if they were disappointed with the answers then they would make the Raju brothers undergo a Norco analysis. Ramalinga Raju had Jan 7 confessed to having cooked the company's account books and inflated profits over the past several years.

The company founder and his brother Rama Raju were arrested Jan 9. Former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas was picked up the next day. Two former auditors from Price Waterhouse were detained later. And today corporate world giants like IBM, Wipro, Larsen & Tubro, Spice group are running for take over Satyam.

Ramalinga Raju in federal crime bureau custody

Ramalinga Raju and four others have been sent to the custody of India's federal crime bureau for investigation into the country's biggest corporate scandal, the bureau said.

Ramalinga Raju, his brother and former Satyam managing director Rama Raju, and chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas will remain in the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for seven days from Tuesday, following a court order, the CBI said.

Two former officials from Satyam's auditing firm Price Waterhouse, S. Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri, have also been sent to CBI custody by a court in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, it said in a statement on Monday.

Satyam has been battling for survival since Ramalinga Raju resigned as chairman on Jan. 7, revealing profits had been overstated for years and that $1 billion of cash and bank balances on the company's books did not exist. The five men were all arrested later that month.

The CBI took over the fraud investigation last month from the police in Andhra Pradesh state, whose capital is Hyderabad.

The bureau's statement said several documents related to the case had been collected and witnesses had been examined.

Satyam kicked off a bidding process on Monday to sell a majority stake to regain the confidence of its clients and staff, and two potential suitors quickly confirmed they would join the race for the tainted outsourcer.

Raju and 4 others in custody of CBI

The CBI moved a local court here to seek the custody of tainted Satyam Computer founder B Ramalinga Raju and involved four others for questioning in connection with the Rs 7,800-crore accounting scam in the IT Company.

The move from the CBI comes after receiving legal opinion that the agency could question Raju and others. Its prosecution department, citing a Supreme Court ruling, had claimed that it could not seek Raju's custody. The official said an application seeking seven days custody of the five accused, including Raju, was filed by the CBI in the court of XIV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.

The judge asked the CBI's public prosecutor to serve notices to defence lawyers tomorrow. Besides Ramalinga Raju, the CBI wants to question company's former managing director Rama Raju, ex-CFO Vadlamani Srinivas and sacked partners of PriceWaterhouse S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas.