Tech M urges HC to remove its name from ED’s accused list

HYDERABAD: Apart from failing to file the chargesheet on time in the Satyam scam case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is now facing another problem. Nearly eight years after the scam surfaced, the probe agency is still struggling to get charges framed on all the 212 accused, mainly due to legal challenges raised by accused number one, the company. On Monday, senior counsel T Niranjan Reddy appeared for ED and told before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A Shankar Narayana that the trial court could not commence the charges framing session on all the accused because of the legal impasse.He urged the court to take up the matter and resolve it expeditiously.
“Without the name of the company, the case against other accused, including Ramalinga Raju cannot be sustained,” the senior counsel said. Moreover, he added, it was Tech Mahindra which earlier agreed to take over all the assets. Tech Mahindra counsel Vivek Reddy told the court that if the name of their company figures as an accused in a money laundering case, then it will adversely affect their international business. “We came to the rescue of the scam-hit company and we cannot be blamed for reviving the company from the brink of collapse,” he said. The bench posted the case to November 28 for final hearing.
ED has named Tech Mahindra (formerly Satyam Computer Services Ltd) as accused number one in its charge sheet on the grounds that Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju used the company as a conduit for his money laundering activities. A single judge earlier provided relief to Tech Mahindra and removed it from the list of accused. Aggrieved, ED filed an appeal in the high court. A division bench earlier asked the company to face the charges framing session in the trial court. “If the trial court sees no case against you, you are free. If it finds some material against you and frames charges against you and if you are aggrieved by that then come to us,” the bench had said in its April 2015 order. When Tech Mahindra approached the Supreme Court challenging this order, the apex court stayed the process of framing charges and referred the petition back to HC asking it to resolve the issue finally within four months. Even that period was over and the case could not reach the hearing stage till now.
Earlier, ED had even attached Rs 822 crore money lying with the company after identifying it as proceeds of crime. Tech Mahindra filed a petition against this attachment and its plea is still pending in the court. The HC earlier stayed this attachment. “We will fight it out separately as this is a separate case,” ED Counsel PSP Suresh Kumar told TOI.