On Wednesday, The Supreme Court will hear a plea filed by RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav challenging his jail sentence in connection with the fodder scam case in the mid 1990s.
The fodder scam involved the defalcation of about Rs. 96 lakhs from the government treasury of Bihar.
The Central Bureau of Investigation had filed a plea in the Supreme court against the dropping of a conspiracy charge against Yadav by the Jharkhand High Court in one of the fodder scam cases.
Then, the CBI filed its latest appeal against the high court order upholding the agency’s plea to continue proceedings in the trial court against Prasad under two sections.
The High Court had ordered that proceedings against Yadav 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).
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 fodder scam relates to fraudulent withdrawal of around 1,000 crore rupees by the Animal Husbandry department from various districts when Lalu was the Bihar chief minister from 1990 to 1997.
On 3rd October, 2013, Lalu Prasad Yadav was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in another case of fodder scam by a special CBI court. The court had disqualified him from membership of Parliament (MP) and also rendered him ineligible for contesting elections for 11 years.
In this case, six other politicians and four retired IAS officers were also sentenced to prison terms for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa treasury (now in Jharkhand).
