CBI files second chargesheet in the Satyam scam
The CBI on Tuesday filed second chargesheet in the multi-crore rupee Satyam scam against the founder chairman of the company, B Ramalinga Raju, and others, including recently arrested internal auditor of the company V S Prabhakar Gupta.
The chargesheet was filed in the designated court here accusing Raju and Gupta under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly indulging in siphoning off money to tax-haven countries, including Mauritius. As per the chargesheet, "the accused forged board resolutions and unauthorisedly obtained loans to the tune of Rs 1,220 crore for Satyam Computer. "They also prepared fake invoices worth Rs 430 crore," the chargesheet said.
The chargesheet comes within days of the CBI team going to other countries to probe the alleged diversion of funds by Raju and re-routing back to India, official sources said. The funds were routed back to India via European nations as "investments" in nearly 300 alleged fictitious companies floated in the name of his relatives, they said. The CBI, which is probing the Rs 10,000-crore accounting fraud at Satyam Computer Services, has found during investigations that Raju had diverted big amounts to Mauritius from where the money was brought back to India via several European countries, they added.
Sources said the amount of Rs 7,800 crore mentioned by Raju in his "confessional statement" earlier this year was far less then what is emerging out of the investigations. The second chargesheet highlights some more financial transactions made by Raju and some of his associates, sources said. It contains 1,549 additional documents and submissions from 301 witnesses. In all, it is a 55,000-page document with a 200-page supplementary chargesheet. The CBI had filed the first chargesheet on April 7 this year.
The agency, after filing the second chargesheet, is expected to travel to the US and probe the transactions made in the current accounts maintained in Bank of Baroda's New York branch and a non-existent balance of Rs 1,733 crore that has been found till date.
The CBI, which has set up a multi-disciplinary investigation team, including officials from the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate and the RBI, has claimed that the money involved in the scam is nearly Rs 10,000 crore, more than what was stated by Raju in his confessional note in January this year.
