Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, February 15
RJD President and Former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was taken into custody of the court immediately after special CBI judge,Sudhanshu Kumar Shashi convicted him in the biggest fodder scam involving Rs 139.50 crores fraudulent withdrawal from Doranda treasury.
On health grounds, Lalu was admitted in the Paying Ward of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences.
He is all set to get more than three years sentence as all the 38 other accused who were awarded three years sentence were released on bail by the court.
According to the provisions in the Representation of People’s Act and article 102 of the Constitution, those sentenced for more than two years stand disqualified as voter and cannot contest even election to the village panchayats to Parliament. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s hopes to enter Rajya Sabha in the biennial elections in April have been dashed with the CBI special court convicting him.
There were 99 accused in the case, of which 24 were acquitted by the court today. CBI had registered the case for Doranda treasury scam on April 16,1996 and produced 575 witnesses and presented 14 box loads of documents.
Lalu Prasad Yadav last week had wished to contest the elections as he had nearly completed sentences ranging between three years and seven years in four other cases since 2013, when he was sentenced first to three years jail term.
Lalu who was in Patna before leaving for Ranchi had presided over the national executive of RJD and announced the names of candidates for 24 seats of local bodies constituencies to fill up vacancies to Bihar Vidhan Parishad.
He had told his workers to be ready for a long-drawn battle and indicated he may enter Rajya Sabha in July as RJD MLAs can help elect two candidates to the Upper House. He had been disqualified as member of Lok Sabha in 2013 following his first conviction for three years. His disqualified continued following series of sentences for more than three years.
Lalu’s eldest daughter Misa Bharti, a member of Rajya Sabha, former cabinet colleagues of Lalu, Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Shyam Rajak accompanied Lalu from Jharkhand state guest house to the court.
He was granted bail in the cases as he had completed half of the jail term in Chaibasa, Deoghar, Dumka treasuries cases.
In Chaibasa case, he along with 44 other accused was awarded five years jail term for Rs 37 crore scam, in Deoghar treasury case, he was sentenced for 3.6 years along with 38 others for Rs 84 lakh fraudulent withdrawal, in Chaibasa treasury case he along with 56 others got jail term for five years for Rs 33 crores withdrawal. He is facing trial in another treasury scam at Banka treasury in Bihar.
Meanwhile, former Deputy CM and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Tuesday claimed Lalu Prasad Yadav faces curse of the poor.
Reacting to the CBI special court order convicting the RJD president in yet another fodder scam case, Modi who was instrumental in filing case in Patna High Court against Lalu, said” Lalu has amassed wealth for his seven next generations”.
Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, leader of opposition and his younger son, alleged his father was victim of dirty politics and CBI acting as a wing of the BJP. He has been victimised because he championed the cause of poor.
Tejashwi said there are people like Neerav Modi, Lalit Modi, Vipul Choksi who are free even after committing frauds in India, but Lalu had been convicted. “There are 80 cases of frauds in Bihar in the last 15 years, but CBI is silent,” junior Yadav said.
