Tech Mahindra says SC dismissed ED petition on attaching FDs in Satyam case

The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) to provisionally attach fixed deposits worth Rs 822 crore of the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services, according to , which acquired the fraud-hit Hyderabad-based IT services provider in 2009.

The ED had provisionally attached the fixed deposits in 2012 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 as part of its investigation into a money laundering case against Satyam.

Tech Mahindra – one of the top five Indian IT services providers by revenue – said it had received the apex court order, which dismissed ED’s Special Leave Petition on February 26 seeking provisional attachment under Section 5(1) of the PMLA.

The top court order came following a December 2018 Hyderabad High Court order which set aside the ED’s decision to provisionally attach the fixed deposits.

The ED’s contention was that these were ill-gotten gains from the Rs 7,200 Satyam Computer Services fraud, after a probe had found that Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju and his associates had “wrongfully” offloaded inflated shares of the company by way of sale or pledging of shares.

A trail of loans from front companies showed that Rs 822 crore out of Rs 2,171.45 crore was being used by Satyam Computers for day-to-day expenses and payment of salaries, the ED had said in 2012. News of India