Verdict in 4th fodder scam case involving Lalu deferred

The judgment in the fourth fodder scam case involving former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad was deferred on Thursday by a special CBI court in Ranchi.

Lalu Prasad filed a fresh petition in the court of Shivapal Singh to make the then Auditor General an accused in the case since he did not report the fraudulent withdrawal from the treasury. The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader’s petition will be heard on Friday.

The court will decide on the new date for pronouncing judgment after hearing Lalu Prasad’s plea. The hearing in the fodder case -- relating to fraudulent withdrawals of Rs 3.13 crore from December 1995 to January 1996 from the Dumka treasury -- was completed on March 5 and the verdict was fixed for March 15.

Besides Lalu Prasad, another former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and 30 others are accused in this case. Lalu Prasad was convicted in the first fodder scam case in 2013 and awarded five years in jail. The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief was convicted by a special CBI court in the second case on December 23, 2017, and awarded three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on January 6.

He was convicted in the third case on January 24, related to fraudulent withdrawals from the Chaibasa treasury, and awarded a five-year jail term.

He now faces two other cases -one in Ranchi and one in Patna.

The multi-million rupee fodder scam surfaced in the 1990s when Lalu Yadav was Chief Minister of undivided Bihar. The probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation on the Patna HC order. IANS

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