Fodder scam: 5 years in jail for Lalu
Ranchi: A special CBI court here on Thursday sentenced Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav to 5 years in jail in the fodder scam case. The court had on Monday found him guilty in the multi-crore scam. Former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra gets 4 years.
The sentence was pronounced through videoconferencing. Yadav is currently lodged in Birsa Munda Central Jail, 10 km from here. He is prisoner No 3312 and has a cell that measures 10 feet X 10 feet.
The verdict also disqualifies him from his Lok Sabha membership and barring him from contesting elections for six years, according to a recent Supreme Court order.
The other 44 accused, including former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra, six politicians and four IAS officers, were also convicted by court of Pravas Kumar Singh for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa treasury. They are presently lodged at the Birsa Munda Central jail along with other fodder scam convicts.
The Special CBI court had granted bail to eight of the convicts as they had been sentenced to three years' rigorous imprisonment, a prison term that allows the convict to move for bail in the same court.
The fodder scam also known as "Chara Ghotala" involved the siphoning of funds from the Bihar Government treasury.
The alleged theft spanned over several years, and many Bihar state government administrative and elected officials across multiple administrations were allegedly engaged in it.
The fodder scam was unearthed in Bihar in 1996 when Lalu Prasad was the Chief Minister of the state. He had resigned from the post in 1997 after a court issued an arrest warrant against him in connection with one of the cases.
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