Hyderabad: Almost 19 months after he was arrested in connection with India's biggest corporate scam, Satyam Computer founder and chairman B Ramalinga Raju was on Wednesday granted bail by the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
Justice Raja Elango, who had heard the bail plea as well as the arguments of the Central Bureau of Investigation counsel against releasing Raju on bail, granted him conditional bail on Wednesday. Raju has been asked to furnish a personal bond of Rs 20 lakhs as surety for his release. He has also been directed to mark his presence every day at the area police station and be available to the Central Bureau of Investigations, whenever required.
The bail was granted on health grounds, reports said.
He was likely to be released by Wednesday evening after completion of all the legal formalities at the Chanchalguda Central Jail, where he was lodged since arrest on January 10, 2009 by the Hyderabad police.
Ramalinga Raju is the prime accused in Rs 7,000 crore Satyam scam, which came to light in January last year when Raju himself wrote a letter to the Stock Exchange Board of India admitting that he had had doctored the accounts book to inflate the figures of the company.
Raju is the last among the accused to be released on the bail as the High Court had released on bail the other key accused B Rama Raju, managing director and brother of Ramalinga Raju, Vadlamani Srinivas, the Chief Financial Officer of the company.
While Ramalinga Raju’s counsel had sought his release on bail on the ground of delay in trial and his illness, Additional Solicitor General H P Rawal of the CBI told the court that if he was release, he could destroy evidence. He alleged that Ramalinga Raju was involved in "economic terrorism".
Unhappy with the granting of bail to Raju, CBI was planning to move the Supreme Court against the orders of the High Court.
