At Ranchi Court For Fodder Scam Verdict, Lalu Yadav Says "Will Get Justice": 10 Points

In October 2013 when Lalu Yadav was first convicted in a related fodder scam case, he had to spend two months in jail before he got bail from the Supreme Court.

All India | Reported by , Edited by | Updated: December 23, 2017 11:24 IST
At Ranchi Court For Fodder Scam Verdict, Lalu Yadav Says 'Will Get Justice': 10 Points

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Fodder scam case: Lalu Yadav outside the Ranchi court where the verdict will be pronounced

Ranchi:  A special CBI court in Ranchi will pronounce its verdict this afternoon in a fodder scam case in which the former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav is an accused. Mr Yadav, as he arrived at the court this morning, said he was "confident that he will get justice". The Rashtriya Janata Dal or RJD chief has already been convicted in another fodder scam case that cost him his Lok Sabha seat and disqualified him from contesting elections.
Following are the top 10 developments in this story:
  1. Lalu Yadav asked his supporters to maintain peace and calm irrespective of the verdict. Many workers from Lalu Yadav's RJD have gathered outside the court premises to express solidarity with their leader who blamed the BJP for foisting these cases to "defame him".
  2. Accompanying Mr Yadav to the court, is his younger son and political heir Tejashwi. "We trust the judiciary and hope the verdict will be in our favor. Just like BJP propaganda was busted in 2G scam and Adarsh scam, a similar thing will happen now," he told reporters this morning.
  3. If Lalu Yadav is convicted, he will be immediately taken into custody. In October 2013 when he was first convicted in a related fodder scam case, he had to spend two months in jail before he got bail from the Supreme Court.
  4. Today's case relates to embezzling of more than Rs 85 lakh from the Deoghar Treasury between 1991 and 1994. In this case, Lalu Yadav faces accusations that as the Chief Minister and Finance Minister back in the nineties, he kept the file for an inquiry against the mastermind of the scam pending for 16 months and gave three other officials extensions despite objections from bureaucrats. The CBI says he was aware of the scam but allowed the loot to continue by his inaction.
  5. Apart from Mr Yadav, former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra and 19 others are also accused in the case. Of the 34 people initially accused in the case, 11 died during the course of trial, while one turned approver and admitted to the crime.
  6. Special CBI judge Shivapal Singh had completed hearing the case on December 13 and asked all accused in the case to remain present in court for the judgment.
  7. In October 2013, Mr Yadav was convicted in one of the cases - on charges of embezzling Rs 37 crore. That verdict had disqualified him from the Lok Sabha and contesting elections.
  8. In 2014, the Jharkhand High Court had given relief to the former Bihar Chief Minister and others by dropping charges of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and prevention of corruption. The court had quashed the cases on the grounds that a person convicted in one case could not be tried in similar cases based on same witnesses and evidences.
  9. In May this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Lalu Yadav will have to stand trial in all the fodder scam cases, setting aside the high court order that dropped cases charges against the former Bihar chief minister.
  10. The former chief minister of Bihar had been charged in several cases related to the scam, in which Rs 900 crore were embezzled from the state exchequer for fictitious medicines and fodder for cattle over a period of 20 years. The CBI started probing the case in 1996.