Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, April 4: The Supreme Court ordered Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav to respond to a petition challenging a Jharkhand High Court judgement granting him bail in a case involving the fodder fraud.
Justices L. Nageswara Rao and B.R. Gavai agreed to hear a petition challenging a Jharkhand High Court ruling granting bail to Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and ordered him to respond.
The Court was hearing petitions challenging the Jharkhand High Court’s rulings in the Dumka treasury case dated April 17, 2021, and the Chaibasa treasury case dated October 9, 2020, both involving the fodder scandal. Earlier, HC had granted bail to Lalu Prasad Yadav in the Dumka treasury case on April 17.
The Rs 950-crore fodder scam (which Lalu has been found guilty of as part of a total of five fodder scams) involves the fraudulent removal of public cash from government treasuries in several districts of undivided Bihar.
The swindle was discovered after a raid at the Animal Husbandry Department by Deputy Commissioner of Chaibasa Amit Khare in January 1996.
After mounting pressure to investigate the case, the Patna High Court enlisted the help of the CBI in March 1996. The CBI filed a FIR in the matter when Bihar was still a single state. Yadav was mentioned as a defendant in the case for the first time in the charge sheet submitted by the CBI in June 1997.
