VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Feb. 21: Once a king of India’s cow-belt, former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav is now a crestfallen convict whom the law caught for presiding over a mega fodder scam worth Rs 950 crore during the undivided Bihar.
On Monday (February 21), the special CBI court of Sudhanshu Kumar Shashi awarded him five years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 60 lakh. This was the case related to the illegal withdrawal of Rs 139.35 Crore from the Doranda treasury against an actual allotment of Rs 1.97 Crore during 1991 and 1995 when he was chief minister of Bihar.
Today was the fifth case of fodder scam in which Lalu Prasad Yadav was sentenced and fined. So far in all five cases, Lalu Prasad Yadav was awarded 32.5 years of rigorous imprisonment and Rs 1.65 Crore as a fine.
His conviction has already put a full stop to the possibility of his contesting the 2024 parliamentary election since the conviction has disqualified him from contesting any election for the next six years. 72-year old Lalu Prasad is old and ailing and it is too early to speculate about his electoral politics beyond 2024 since the time and destiny remained very unpredictable for him.
He was the five-time MP who ruled Bihar as the chief minister and through proxy during the post-Mandal era. But his charisma vanished and conviction became the fate of his life.
His first conviction came on September 30, 2013, in RC 20A/ 96 case related to illegal withdrawal of Rs. 37.70 crores from the Chaibasa treasury case. The court awarded him five years of rigorous imprisonment and Rs 25 lakh as a fine.
In the second case 64 A/ 96, he was sentenced to 3.5 years of rigorous jail term along with Rs 10 lakh as a fine. The judgment was delivered on December 23, 2017. The case was related to the fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deoghar treasury.
In the third case, RC 68 A/ 96, he was awarded five years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10 lakh. The judgment, in this case, was delivered on January 24, 2018. The case was related to the illegal withdrawal of Rs 33.13 crores from the Chaibasa treasury.
He got the maximum punishment in the case 38A/96 when the special CBI court of Shivpal Singh convicted him with 14 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 60 Lakh. The court awarded him seven years of jail under provisions of IPC and another seven years under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The court said that both sentences would run in the consecutive way, not concurrently.
The judgment was delivered on March 19, 2018, and the case was related to the illegal withdrawal of Rs 3.76 crore from the Dumka treasury.
However, Lalu Prasad Yadav challenged the judgment as erroneous and said that sentences in a case can’t run in a consecutive way. Jharkhand High Court granted him bail on the ground that he served 3.5 years in jail.
