The special court trying the multi-crore Satyam accounting fraud today dismissed a petition by three of the accused in the scam seeking postponement of the hearing in the case.
The XXI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACCM) court dismissed the petitions of former Chief Financial Officer Vadlamani Srinivas, and two former Satyam employees D. Venkatapathi Raju, Senior Manager (Finance) and Ch Srisailam, Assistant Manager, saying the petitions were devoid of merit.
The trio, on Tuesday last, filed the petitions seeking postponement of the case on the grounds that the CBI probe was still pending and the agency is still to file the fourth chargesheet.
“Investigations in the case are not complete and the three chargesheets filed by the CBI are not final reports and therefore the trial cannot be proceeded,” the defence counsel had earlier argued.
However, CBI’s Special Public Prosecutor K. Surender had strongly opposed the applications, saying the court had already rejected a similar plea of another accused earlier and requested the court not to stop the proceedings in the case.
Following this, the matter was posted for today.
Magistrate B.V.L.N. Chakravarti in his orders observed that “the contention of the petitioners that they will suffer prejudice if the trial is proceeded pending further investigation and filing of the fourth chargesheet, and their request to postpone the trial in this case till filing of the fourth chargesheet is not tenable in the law.”
The magistrate further directed the defence counsel to file their final arguments seeking discharge from the case on September 29 to enable the court to proceed further with framing of the charges against the ten accused.
