Satyam verdict: Ex-staffers welcome Ramalinga Raju's sentence

NEW DELHI: “For a full month or so, we had no idea if we would be getting salaries, whether we had to work or not,” says a former employee of the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services, recalling the workers’ ordeal for several days in 2009 after company founder B Ramalinga Raju confessed that he had fudged company accounts. Raju had sent out an email to the board and employees, confessing to the Rs 7,136-crore fraud on January 7, 2009, and most thought the company was closed for good, recalls the former employee who now works with a US-based telecom major in Hyderabad. On Thursday, a special court convicted Raju and nine others of criminal conspiracy, cheating, and criminal breach of trust, among other crimes, and Raju was sentenced to seven years in jail, and slapped with a fine of Rs 5 crore.
“The quantum of punishment is too little, too late,” says a Mumbai-based former Satyam employee, who now works for one of the top four Indian IT companies. Some others say justice had prevailed, and that the case had been brought to closure. “These kind of things should not happen. They leave a bad taste in the community, investors and for us as workers,” says a Gurgaonbased former Satyam employee.

Almost everybody remembers the general sense of disbelief that prevailed in Satyam after Raju confessed. “There was this sense that Raju could do no wrong. Some even said he just wanted the company to grow very fast, just that his plan did not work out,” recalls another employee who now works with a financial services company in Delhi.

As the news slowly sunk in and staff struggled to understand the implications of the “scam”, many of them ran into the biggest challenge of their lives. “There were people who had monthly installments to pay, families to support. There was a time when banks refused to give loans to Satyam employees, and there was absolutely no clarity on which way we were headed,” recalls a former employee now based in Pune.

Many also remember the incessant media glare and scrutiny that followed, especially for staffers based in Hyderabad, where Satyam was headquartered. However, assurances began coming in from several quarters within a couple of months. “We’re all in this together is the message that went out from the senior management. Clients also assured us that payments would be made and that they valued talent. Some eventually hired or inducted some staff into their own companies,” says another Pune-based former Satyam employee.

Most people credit Tech Mahindra for a relatively smooth transition. While most people at senior levels in Satyam quit, those employees—even at junior levels—who remained with the company after the takeover, were adequately incentivised later through better hikes and onsite opportunities. “They (the new management) too wanted to retain talent because most of us were familiar with our domains. Even within Tech Mahindra, it was a sort of a given that a Satyam employee would be good at his work,” says a Chennai-based employee who stayed on at the company.