January 06, 2018: RJD chief Lalu Prasad was today sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail by a CBI special court in a fodder scam case relating to fraudulent withdrawal of money from the Deoghar Treasury 21 years ago.
CBI court judge Shiv Pal Singh, who had convicted Prasad, along with 10 others on December 23, also imposed a fine of 10 lakh rupees on him for two cases in the scam. A CBI counsel said that he was fined 5 lakh rupees for each case, failing which he would serve another six months in jail.
The court had convicted Prasad for offences of cheating, along with criminal conspiracy, under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
In the case 15 other convicts have also been sentenced by by the Judge Shivpal Singh. Jagdish Sharma, Gopinath Das, Sanjay Agarwal, Sunil Gandhi, Jyoti Jha Tripurari, Tripurari Mohan Prasad and Krishna Kumar Prasad were sentenced 7 year jail. Other convicts Phool Chand, Mahesh Prasad, Bake Julious, Sunil Kumar, Sushil Kumar, Sudhir Kumar, R K Rana, Subir Bhattacharya and Raja Ram were also sentenced to 3.5 years in jail and a fine of Rs 5 lakh each was imposed.
The scam is related to withdrawal of 89 lakh 27 thousand rupees from the Deogarh Treasury between 1990 and 1994 when Prasad was the chief minister of Bihar.
The 69-year-old RJD supremo, in a written plea yesterday, had sought leniency from the CBI court citing illness and old age, according to his counsel Chittaranjan Prasad.
The RJD went into a huddle immediately after the pronouncement of the sentence. RJD sources said that the party would appeal against the verdict.
This is the second fodder scam case in which Prasad has been jailed. He was sent to prison for five years on 30th September 2013. (AIR News)
