Verdict in fodder scam involving RJD chief Lalu Prasad again deferred

Ranchi : The judgment in a fodder scam case involving former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad was again deferred on Saturday and is now likely to be delivered on Monday.

The special CBI court of Shivpal Singh was scheduled to pronounce the verdict on Thusday (March 15) but then shifted it for Saturday before again postponing it to Monday as 42 judges from across the state are participating in a two-day training programme being conducted at the judicial academy here.

According a lawyer, the court has fixed March 19 for delivering the verdict.

The hearing in the fodder case, relating to fraudulent withdrawals of Rs 3.13 crore from the Dumka treasury between December 1995 and January 1996, was completed on March 5.

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 subsequently convicted by a special CBI court in the second case on December 23, 2017, and awarded three-and-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 Prasad was Chief Minister of undivided Bihar. The probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation on Patna High Court's order. The bulk of the cases were transferred to Ranchi after Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000.