Fodder scam: Lalu Prasad Yadav gets 5-year-jail term, slapped with Rs 60 lakh fine
The former Bihar chief minister and 39 others were found guilty in the Rs 139.5 crore Doranda treasury embezzlement case, the fifth prosecution against him in the fodder scandal.
FollowA special CBI court on Monday sentenced RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and other defendants in the Doranda treasury case relating to the fodder scam to five years in prison. The RJD president was also fined Rs 60 lakh by the court.
Previously, the court held the former Bihar chief minister and 39 others guilty of treasury theft in the amount of Rs 139.5 crore in the Doranda case, the sixth prosecution against him in the fodder scandal. Soon after his conviction, the ill 73-year-old lawmaker was sent to Ranchi's Birsa Munda Central Jail, and subsequently to the state-run Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS).
The RJD president was sentenced to 14 years in prison in four additional multi-billion dollar fodder fraud cases involving the Jharkhand treasuries of Dumka, Deoghar, and Chaibasa. He did, however, get bail in these four charges relating to the multi-billion-dollar fodder scheme and served nearly four years in prison. The cases involving the Rs 950-crore fodder scandal involve the illicit removal of public monies from government treasuries in several districts of Bihar. The RJD patriarch, who had been imprisoned in Ranchi since December 2017, was granted bail in April of last year.
The Animal Husbandry Department reportedly issued forged invoices for substantial sums disbursed from government treasuries in several districts of undivided Bihar. Lalu Yadav, the then-chief minister, was also in charge of finance.
In June 1997, the CBI designated Lalu as an accused. Lalu and former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra, who died in 2019, were charged by the agency. In 1996, the central agency reported 53 separate cases related to the fraud.
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