Court reserves order on Ramalinga Raju's appeal against conviction

A Metropolitan Sessions Court in Hyderabad on Wednesday reserved its order till April 20 on an appeal filed by B Ramalinga Raju and others challenging a special court's verdict which found them guilty in the multi-crore rupee accounting fraud in erstwhile Satyam Computer Services.

Raju, along with seven others, had filed the appeal in the Metropolitan Sessions Court on April 13 seeking to set aside the special court's (trial court's) judgement.

They had also sought bail in the case.

The matter was then posted for Wednesday.

The court heard the arguments by the defense counsel for deciding the maintainability of (appeal) of these cases (whether it should be heard) before a sessions court or High Court.

After hearing the arguments, the court posted the matter to April 20 for delivering its orders on the appeal.

On April 9, a special court trying the SCSL accounting fraud probed by CBI, had sentenced Raju and nine others to seven years' rigorous imprisonment finding them guilty of criminal conspiracy as well as cheating, among other offences, in the scam and also imposed a Rs 5.5 crore fine on Raju and his brother Rama Raju.

Raju is lodged in Cherlapally Central Prison in Hyderabad, along with nine others, since April 9.