The founder of Indian outsourcing giant Satyam appeared in court yesterday in a billion-dollar corporate fraud case dubbed “India’s Enron”.

The firm’s founder and former chairman B. Ramalinga Raju – a one-time poster boy for Indian economic progress – appeared at a preliminary hearing in the southern city of Hyderabad.

His declaration in January 2009 that he had falsified profits plunged the Indian business world into turmoil.

The main order of business for the court yesterday was to issue summons to a list of witnesses, Mr Raju’s lawyer, Bharat Kumar, told AFP.

Mr Raju, who faces charges including conspiracy, cheating and forgery, declared in a letter of confession that he had overstated profits for years and inflated the company’s balance sheet by more than a billion dollars.

He later backed down from the confession, but police maintain the letter was a “voluntary disclosure of fraud”.

Mr Raju, 56, was in court yesterday with nine other senior executives from the company, including his brother B. Rama Raju, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Paperwork on witnesses and documents being sought from the accused was processed during the day, with the first witnesses to be examined on November 8, the news agency said.

The scandal at the Hyderabad-based firm is known as “India’s Enron” after the US energy giant that collapsed in 2001 in the wake of massive false-accounting revelations.

Born into a farming family in Andhra Pradesh state, Mr Raju studied at the University of Ohio. Previously known as a soft-spoken boss and admired for his professionalism, he started out in the textile and real estate sectors before spotting the potential of outsourcing.

Yesterday’s hearing opened after India’s Supreme Court last week revoked bail granted to Mr Raju on health grounds in August, saying the gravity of the accusations meant the bail order “could not be sustained”.

Mr Raju has been undergoing treatment for hepatitis at a hospital in Hyderabad.