The bail granted to the erstwhile Satyam Computers’ auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta and PWC official S Gopalakrishnan were on Thursday cancelled by the Supreme Court.
The Apex Court also ordered the two co-accused in the account fraud case to surrender by April 30.
A Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising of Justices P Sathasivam and BS Chauhan cancelled the bail of the two accountants and ordered them to surrender failing which the CBI, which is investigating the case, will arrest them. The apex court had earlier on April 18 reserved its order on the cancellation of bail plea which was filed by the CBI. The Bench said that it was cancelling the bail after observing the charges mentioned against the accountants in the chargesheet filed by the CBI.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court had granted bail to the co-accused in the Rs 14,000 crore accounting fraud in June 2010.
The counsel appearing on behalf of the two accountants had argued that the CBI had delayed in filing for cancellation of the bail granted by the state High Court and also pointed out to the Bench that another PWC auditor Talluri Srinivas has been granted bail by the Apex Court.
The CBI however argued that the roles of the two PWC auditors were different in the scam and had argued in favour of getting their bails cancelled. The CBI counsel argued that Gopalkrishnan had been paid an exorbitant fee by the prime accused B Ramalinga Raju, then head of the company. The CBI counsel said that the exorbitant fee could have been payment for the help offered to Raju.
The Supreme Court had on October 26, 2010 cancelled the bail granted to B Ramalinga Raju, the founding chairman of Satyam Computers.
Raju was released from jail on August 18 after the state High Court granted him bail. All the other co-accused had earlier been granted bail by various Courts at different times.
Raju and his co-accused are undergoing trial for fudging the company’s accounts to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore. The accounting fraud is believed to be the biggest such fraud in the country’s corporate history.