Lalu Prasad Yadav sentenced to 3.5 years in jail, fined Rs 10 lakh in fodder scam case

Lalu Prasad Yadav has been awarded three-and-a-half years in jail in the fodder scam case by a CBI Special Court today. The court also imposed penalty of Rs 10 lakh, failure to pay which will add another six months to the sentence. Six former IAS officials indicted in the case were also awarded jail terms of 3.5 years by the special court.

The RJD is now planning to move High Court against the sentence. They have to go to the High Court to get bail for Yadav as the CBI Court is authorised to grant bail only in cases where the quantum of sentence is three years or less.

The quantum of sentence was for withdrawing Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deogarh Treasury between 1991 and 1994, when Yadav was the Chief Minister of Bihar. The CBI Court in Ranchi pronounced the sentence under Indian Penal Code Sections 120-B, 420, 467, 468, and Preventio of Corruption Act. He was fine Rs 5 lakh each under the IPC and PCA. This will be the sixth stint in jail for the RJD patriarch.

The special court had convicted Yadav and 15 others in the fodder scam case on December 23, while acquitting former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and five others. The court said it was hearing the cases in alphabetical order.

Back in 1996, the Patna High Court had ordered an inquiry into fodder scam cases. A charge sheet in the Deogarh Treasury case was filed against 38 people on October 27, 1997. Eleven of them died and three turned approvers while two other accused confessed and were convicted in 2006-07.

On September 30, 2013, Yadav, Mishra, and several others had been convicted in another case pertaining to illegal withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa Treasury in the early 1990s. The conviction on December 23 last is the second in the scam.
 
Yadav has three more fodder scam cases against him for illicit withdrawal of Rs 3.97 crore from the Dumka Treasury, Rs 36 crore from the Chaibasa Treasury and Rs 184 crore from the Doranda Treasury.