Fodder scam: Special CBI court defers judgment on Lalu Prasad Yadav in fourth case till 19 March

Ranchi: A special CBI court has deferred till 19 March the judgment against former Bihar chief ministers Lalu Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra in the fourth fodder scam case pertaining to alleged withdrawal of Rs 3.13 crore from the Dumka treasury over two decades ago, a lawyer said on Saturday. [caption id=“attachment_4295943” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav. PTI[/caption] This is the second time that the verdict in the case has been postponed, RJD chief Prasad’s counsel Prabhat Kumar said. The court of special judge Shiv Pal Singh had fixed saturday as the date for the pronouncement of the order, he said. The special CBI judge is on a training programme. The judgement will be pronounced on 19 March, the lawyer said. The court had postponed the verdict on 15 March till the next day in view of a petition being filed on behalf of Prasad seeking three officials in the office of the accountant general in the 1990s be made a party to the case, according to Kumar. Besides Prasad and Mishra, 29 others are accused, including former IAS and animal husbandry department officials, in the Dumka treasury case. The 69-year-old RJD chief has been in Birsa Munda jail at Ranchi since 23 December last year after being convicted in the second fodder scam case pertaining to illegal withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deogarh treasury 21 years ago. On 6 January this year, the CBI court judge had sentenced Prasad to three-and-a-half years in jail and imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on him in the Deoghar treasury case. The CBI court had on 24 January this year sentenced Prasad and Mishra to five years in jail in a fodder scam case in connection with fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.62 crore from the Chaibasa treasury. In 2013, Prasad was convicted in the first fodder scam case involving withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from the Chaibasa treasury and sentenced to five years in jail while Mishra was given a prison term of four years. Prasad has already been convicted in three fodder cases while Mishra was convicted in two cases. The fifth case relating to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 139 crore from the Doranda treasury in Ranchi is pending with the court. The over Rs 900-crore fodder scam cases relate to illegal withdrawal of money from government treasuries in different districts of the animal husbandry department in undivided Bihar in 1990s when the RJD was in power in the state and Prasad was the chief minister.