A voluminous 65,000 page chargesheet in the Satyam case was produced in the CBI court in Hyderabad on Tuesday and it was filed in a record 45 days since the CBI took over the case from the CID.
The chargesheet also consists of 1532 documents as evidence with 433 witness statements.
Sources say that CBI could meet the deadline due to the presence of the multidisciplinary team which examined the various parts of the case.
So while SEBI focussed on the capital markets and the issue of insider trading amounting to Rs 700 crore, SFIO focussed on inflation of accounts and the fraudulent methods used by the management.
More than 7000 fake invoices were recovered and evidence of loans arranged for the Raju's family through 327 companies were also gathered. So what did it take to come out with such a voluminous chargesheet within 90 days?
The core investigating team comprised of 11 officers from CBI, 14 officers who formed the multidisciplinary team, 10 junior officers worked on gathering the evidence and and 4 public prosecutors to help with the legal issues.
And ever since the scam broke out, these officers have worked for 16 hours a day sacrificing their weekly offs and public holidays.
But there were a few surprises too in the chargesheet. Contrary to common belief, there was no mention of siphoning of funds to the Maytas companies owned by the promoter family something that the Raju family has been maintaining since the fraud came to light on January 7. "We have filed the chargesheet and the investigations are going on. But as and when facts come out we would file supplementary chargesheets," said VV Laxminarayana, DIG, CBI. With the chargesheet done, the next task before the agency would be to ensure strict sentences against the accused. While there is no evidence of siphoning of funds which could have invited a more harsh sentence for Satyam’s former chairman Raju, CBI maintains that the charge under section 467 of the IPC dealing with forgery of valuable securities alone could give Raju life in prison while the other charges could give him a measly 2-7 years in jail once the charges are proved in court.
NDTV sources
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