RJD leader and Lalu Prasad Yadav's son Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday said that they would challenge CBI court's verdict in the fodder scam case in the High Court. The CBI special court had earlier convicted Lalu is the second of the many fodder scam cases.
Tejashwi also told the media that the BJP and Nitish Kumar have trying to malign Lalu. Even Lalu took to Twitter and the BJP has been trying to intimidate the opposition.
"Will challenge judgement in HC. We have already appealed against conviction in Chaibasa treasury case in HC. Bail procedure would take place only after HC's opening. Nitish Kumar, BJP kept trying to malign Lalu Ji," Tejashwi told the media.
Total 16 people, including Lalu Prasad Yadav, were found guilty. Six, including former Bihar CM Jagannath Mishra, were acquitted. Quantum of punishment will be pronounced on January 3.
CBI judge Shivpal Singh pronounced the verdict in a packed courtroom in the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from Deoghar Treasury between 1991 and 1994. Lalu Prasad Yadav and other convicts were taken into custody immediately after the pronouncement of the verdict amid tight security.
The scam, exposed in 1996, involved the embezzlement of around Rs 1,000 crore from the state exchequer for the purchase of fictitious medicines and fodder for cattle between 1990 and 1997, when Yadav was chief minister.
On September 30, 2013, he was held guilty in the first. Yadav was in jail for a few months in 2013 after a CBI court had convicted him in the first of the fodder scam cases. He got bail in December 2013, three months after he had been convicted. In May this year, the Supreme Court had reinstated criminal conspiracy charges against him in another fodder scam case.
In 2014, the Jharkhand High Court stayed trial against Prasad in four pending fodder scam cases on the ground that a person convicted in one case could not be tried in similar cases based on same witnesses and evidence. However, the Supreme Court quashed the High Court order in May this year and ordered Lalu to stand trial in all pending cases.
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