Hyderabad court stays Netflix series over Ramalinga Raju’s objections

A court in Hyderabad on Tuesday restrained Netflix from releasing web series "Bad Boy Billionaires: India" on the life story of Satyam Computer Services founder B. Ramalinga Raju who was convicted in Satyam scam and three others.

A Hyderabad civil court passed the stay order on a petition filed by Raju, who was released on bail in 2018. He sought orders to restrain Netflix from releasing the web series on the ground that it would invade his privacy in an unlawful manner.

Raju also claimed that the narrative contained half-truths and palpably designed to bring down his reputation.

Netflix has already released the trailer of the web series which is about Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Subrata Roy and Ramalinga Raju.

"What would you do to make it to the top? To build an empire? To maintain an image? Bad Boy Billionaires answers just that. Dive into the stories of India's most infamous billionaires - Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Subrata Roy, and Byrraju Ramalinga Raju as they plan, plot and maneuver through their rises and falls. Watch as insiders and experts discuss what made these men genius and, in some cases, the greatest conmen," reads the description by Netflix.

A court in Bihar had last week restrained Netflix from using Subrata Roy's name in the web series.

The over Rs 7,000 crore Satyam scam came to light on January 7, 2009 when Ramalinga Raju confessed that the company's account books and profits were inflated over many years to the tune of several crores of rupees.

Police arrested him two days later on a complaint by some shareholders.

The CBI filed three charge sheets against Raju and the other accused, charging them with cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery, falsification of accounts and breach of trust.

A special CBI court in April 2015 had sentenced him, his two brothers and seven others to seven years in prison in the case, said to be India's biggest corporate fraud.

However, a month later, the metropolitan sessions court suspended their sentence and granted them bail.