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RJD president Lalu Prasad gets 14-years in jail, Tejashwi fears for his life

Last Updated 24 March 2018, 10:48 IST

The Special CBI court in Ranchi on Saturday awarded 14 years of imprisonment to RJD president Lalu Prasad in the fourth fodder scam case RC 38A/96.

The CBI judge Shiv Pal Singh awarded him two sentences of seven years each under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA). The court also slapped Rs 30 lakh each under the two different sections. The jail sentence would increase by one year if the convict failed to submit fine, the court ordered.

The case is related to fraudulent withdrawal of 3.76 crores from Dumka treasury (then in undivided Bihar, now in Jharkhand) between December 1995 and January 1996. As per the charge sheet, the accused, mostly contractors, suppliers and officials of the Animal Husbandry department, withdrew Rs 3.76 crore by submitting 96 forged bills in merely two months. Lalu Prasad was Chief Minister of Bihar when the scam took place.

This is the most severe punishment meted out to Lalu in the fodder scam cases till now.

The CBI court, on March 19, had convicted 19 accused, including Lalu, while acquitting 12 others in this case. Those who were acquitted included former Chief Minister Dr Jagannath Mishra and two retired IAS officers, Mahesh Prasad and Beck Julius. The court also acquitted former MP Jagdish Sharma, former AHD Minister Vidya Sagar Nishad and former MLA Dhruv Bhagat, who was then Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The CBI judge on Saturday pronounced the quantum of punishment through video-conferencing as Lalu, suffering from severe ailments, is recuperating at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi.

"This is really unfortunate. This is also against natural justice that one person has been awarded punishment multiple times for the same offence. The apex court had earlier bifurcated fodder scam case into six different parts. And now the lower court is pronouncing one punishment after another in all the different (truncated) cases. This is not fair," said RJD vice-president Shivanand Tiwary, who, ironically, was one of the petitioners in the fodder scam, when he was with Nitish's Samata Party in the mid-90s.

"We will move High Court for relief," said Lalu's youngest son and former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav. He, however, added that he feared for Lalu's life.

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(Published 24 March 2018, 07:30 IST)

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