Hyderabad, June 25 (IANS) A city court Friday allowed an accused in the Rs.14,000 crore Satyam scam to use a computer in jail to prepare for his defence, while the Andhra Pradesh High Court granted bail to two accused in the accounting fraud.
Magistrate B.V.L.N. Chakravarti directed Chanchalguda jail authorities to provide a computer to G. Ramakrishna, former vice president, finance of Satyam Computer Services.
He has been allowed to use a desktop computer to read, write and edit text documents. The system will also have the facility to read CDs and DVDs supplied by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the case.
However, the use of the computer by the accused will be subject to certain conditions, the court said.
The court directed that the computer be used only for storing, retrieving and accessing the case records.
The accused would have to bear the cost of procuring and installing the computer and the electricity charges.
The place of installation and the timing of the use will be decided by jail superintendent.
The magistrate made it clear that the accused would have no access to internet or pen drives.
The court adjourned to June 29 the hearing on CBI’s petition for allowing it to examine main accused Ramalinga Raju through video conference.
The founder and disgraced chairman of Satyam is currently undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS).
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh High Court granted conditional bail to former senior partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) S. Gopalakrishnan and former internal auditor of Satyam V.S. Prabhakar Gupta on health grounds. The two have been asked not to leave India.
The Supreme Court in February granted bail to another PwC auditor Talluri Srinivas.
Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas were arrested in January last year a few days after Raju admitted to a massive accounting fraud in the IT bellwether.
The two were charged with doctoring the accounts in collusion with Raju and others.
The CBI later arrested Gupta and two other Satyam employees on similar charges.
