The Supreme Court granted bail to former Satyam CEO B Ramalinga Raju and two others on Friday. Raju has been in jail for two years and eight months. He was arrested in connection with the multi-crore accounting fraud involving Satyam Computers.

The CBI on Thursday moved an affidavit in the Supreme Court opposing bail pleas of Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju, key accused in the Rs 14,000 crore Satyam scam case, and said it was certain that once out of jail they would tamper with evidence and delay trial. But the supreme court bench consisting of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Dipak Misra said from the facts of the case and considering the totality of the circumstances, it was appropriate to grant them bail.

The Supreme Court had on October 26 last year cancelled the bail granted to Ramalinga Raju and others. However, it had given liberty to the accused to move for fresh bail after July 31 this year if the trial did not get completed. CBI said the delaying tactics by the accused and the Telangana agitation had led to the trial getting delayed beyond the July 31 deadline.

The supreme court had on October 12 granted bail to five other accused in the case. The former Satyam employees, who were granted bail, are its former Internal Chief Auditor V S Prabhakar Gupta besides executives G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and Ch Srisailam. The fifth accused, who got the bail, is the former auditor of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) Subramani Gopalakrishnan.