Ranchi: Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav today appeared before a special CBI court in Ranchi in connection with the multi-crore fodder scam.
Lalu’s counsel Prabhat Kumar told ANI, “The case is pertaining to RC38A/1996, in which there are a total of 48 accused and most of them were evading personal appearance. That is why all the accused had been ordered by the court to appear before it.”
“So far 15-17 accused have marked their presence in the court, and more are expected to visit. The court will take legal action against those who failed to comply with its order,” Kumar added.
On June 2, the court had summoned 38 people accused in a case related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs. 3.31 crore from Dumka treasury including the RJD chief.
Mr Yadav arrived on Ranchi on Sunday evening from Patna.
The case trial is under process.
A special CBI court in Ranchi had convicted Prasad and 44 others in September, 2014, in the case relating to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.70 crore from Chaibasa treasury in 1994-95 in the fodder scam. He was later granted bail by the Supreme Court in December the same year.
The CBI filed the latest appeal against the Jharkhand High Court order upholding the agency's plea to continue proceedings in the trial court against Prasad under two sections, while dropping other charges on the grounds that a person cannot be tried twice for the same offence.
The High Court had ordered that proceedings against him be continued under IPC sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence committed or giving false information) and 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or imprisonment, and in such attempt doing any act towards the commission of the offence).
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The charges are in connection with the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 96 lakh during the chief ministerial tenure of the RJD chief.
The High Court, however, had dropped IPC 120, 120B, 409, 420, 471, 477, 477A and 13(2) under Prevention of Corruption Act against Prasad, giving him relief under section 300 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act and Article 22 of the Constitution which states that a person once convicted or acquitted cannot to be tried for the same offence again.
Prasad had moved the petition in the High Court for relief under the CrPC section after he was found guilty by the CBI court on 30 September, 2014 in the fodder scam case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa Treasury.
The scam pertains to fraudulent withdrawal of public money worth Rs 950 crore from the treasuries of undivided Bihar under the head of the animal husbandry department (AHD) from 1990 onwards. The withdrawals were carried out on the basis of fake bills and vouchers for buying feed, fodder and medicine for livestock by AHD officials in connivance with suppliers and the top layer of the state’s bureaucracy and politicians cutting across parties, including the RJD, Congress, JD(U) and the BJP. Some CBI sleuths preferred to refer to it as “treasury scam” instead of fodder scam.
(Agencies)
