Ranchi: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) head Lalu Prasad Yadav was found guilty on Monday and was sentenced to five years imprisonment, for the fifth fodder scam case, by a special CBI court. The former Chief Minister of Bihar was convicted on an illegal withdrawal of Rs 139.35 crore from the Doranda treasury in Ranchi during 1995-96, The Indian Express reported.
Through video conferencing, the special court had convicted Lalu Prasad and 74 others on the illegal withdrawal while acquitted 24. It had imposed a 60 lakh fine on Lalu Prasad, who, aged 74, is now admitted to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranch because of bad health.
The court had convicted 34 accused earlier, awarding them the maximum imprisonment of three years while fines in the range of Rs 20,000 to Rs 2 Lakh. The remaining 41, including Lalu Prasad, received sentencing on Monday with the maximum penalty up to Rs 2 crore.
The counsel for the defence, Anant Kumar Vij, said that Lalu Prasad has already done three years jail term. The fresh sentence is five years, and he had already done half of it, they would apply for bail before the court, Vij said.
However, Lau Prasad had been convicted in four cases earlier, and one more case is pending before CBI in Patna regarding another illicit withdrawal from the Banka-Bhagalpur treasury.
The fodder scam case was framed, naming the accused, in September 2005, and the prosecution closed evidence in May 2019. Further, statements of the accused were gathered in January 2020.
Lalu Prasad was first convicted in a fodder scam in 2013 and got five years in jail for Chaibasa illegal withdrawal of cases. He was also banned from contesting in elections for 11 years.
Lalu won bail on the case but was convicted again by a special CBI court in December 2017 for illegal withdrawals of more than Rs 80 lakh from Deoghar treasure and was sentenced to three and half years. In 2018 he was convicted on the third case for illegal withdrawal of Rs 33.67 crore from the Chaibasa treasury. In the same year, the fourth case convicted him for Rs 3.13 crore illegal withdrawal.