Fodder scam case: Lalu Prasad sentencing deferred till tomorrow

In the first fodder scam case, Lalu was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail.

Former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad will be sentenced Thursday by a special CBI court in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam case.

The court was expected to pronounce the quantum of the sentence today, a day after it reopened after winter break, but deferred the sentencing to Thursday. It also held RJD leaders Tejashwi Yadav, Raghuvansh Singh, Shivanand Tiwari and Congress leader Manish Tiwari in contempt of court for their statements to the media after Lalu Prasad’s conviction.

“It is shocking because none of us uttered a single word against the judicial process or the judgement,” RJD leader Manoj Jha told ANI.

Lalu Prasad was escorted back to the Ranchi jail.

In the first fodder scam case, Lalu was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail. He was barred from contesting in elections for 11 years, in line with the Supreme Court order disqualifying convicts jailed for more than two years from contesting for six years after completion of their sentence.

The CBI court in Ranchi is also hearing four other cases related to the fodder scam in which Lalu is among the accused. Along with Lalu, 15 others were convicted and await their sentencing today. Former Bihar chief minister, Jagannath Mishra, and five other co-accused were, however, acquitted by the court.

This led senior RJD leader and former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who was present on the court premises, to say, “Jagannath Mishra ko bail aur Lalu ko jail… abhi yehi hai khel (bail for Mishra and jail for Lalu, this is the game now)… When both were facing exactly the same charges in the same case, how can one get bail and the other be jailed?”

with ENS inputs

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