Andhra high court grants bail to auditors in Satyam case

Price Waterhouse auditor S. Gopalakrishnan and Satyam’s former internal audit head V.S. Prabhakar Gupta are accused of conniving with B. Ramalinga Raju, the software company’s founder, in the Rs7,136 crore fraud that came to light in January 2008.

The Andhra Pradesh high court on Friday granted bail to two auditors accused in the multi-crore accounting fraud at Satyam Computer Services Ltd, now rebranded Mahindra Satyam.

Price Waterhouse auditor S. Gopalakrishnan and Satyam’s former internal audit head V.S. Prabhakar Gupta are accused of conniving with B. Ramalinga Raju, the software company’s founder, in the Rs7,136 crore fraud that came to light in January 2008.

Price Waterhouse, an arm of audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), was Satyam’s auditor.

Gopalakrishnan had been denied bail by the high court only four months back, even as Srinivas Talluri, the other Price Waterhouse auditor accused in the case, was granted bail by the Supreme Court.

The high court said the basis for granting bail to Talluri applied to Gopalakrishnan and Gupta as well as the commencement of the trial was expected to take long given the voluminous evidence and large number of witnesses.

Gopalakrishnan and Gupta have been asked to report to the Central Bureau of Investigation daily and furnish sureties of Rs40 lakh each.

Related posts:

1. Satyam auditor Gopalkrishnan moved Supreme Court seeking bail
2. SC granted bail to PWC auditor Srinivas Talluri allegedly involved in Satyam fraud
3. CBI opposed the bail plea of Price Waterhouse auditor Mr Srinivas Talluri
4. Satyam auditors played key role in scam: CBI
5. PWC named two more Auditors in Satyam Scam