HYDERABAD: A special CBI court here on Thursday found B. Ramalinga Raju, his brother Rama Raju and eight others guilty of the multi-crore Satyam scam, which stunned the corporate world in 2009.
Ramalinga Raju, Satyam Computer Services Limited's founder and former chairman, and his brother were found guilty of criminal breach of trust, a CBI lawyer said.
Eight others were declared guilty of criminal conspiracy in the country's biggest accounting fraud.
These eight held guilty are Ramalinga Raju's another brother 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.
Special Judge B.V.L.N. Chakravarthi of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court pronounced the much awaited verdict in the packed court hall.
Media persons were barred from entering the court room.
The details of the sentence will be known once the judge completes the reading of the verdict, sources said.
Raju and others were charged with offences like cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breach of trust under relevant sections of IPC for inflating invoices and incomes, account falsification, faking fixed deposits, besides allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various Income Tax laws.
In February 2009, the CBI took over the investigation and filed three charge sheets (on April 7, 2009, November 24, 2009 and January 7, 2010), which were later clubbed into one.
The first two charge sheets dealt with the account fudging by Raju with the assistance of nine others, while the third charge sheet relates to "violation" of various Income Tax rules.
While the CBI accused Raju and the others of cheating, breach of trust by way of inflating invoices and incomes in the first and third charge sheets, the second one dealt with the accused allegedly falsifying returns through violation of various IT laws.
During the trial, the CBI alleged that the scam caused a loss of Rs 14,000 crore to shareholders of Satyam, while the defence countered the charges saying the accused were not responsible for the fraud and all the documents filed by the central agency relating to the case were fabricated and not according to the law.
The Enforcement Directorate had also filed a charge sheet against them under Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
In January last year, Ramalinga Raju's wife Nandini Raju and sons Teja Raju and Rama Raju were among 21 relatives of the ex-Satyam boss who were convicted by a Special Court for Economic Offences here for default in Income Tax payment.
(With inputs from PTI)