Special (CBI) court judge Shivpal Singh, who convicted Lalu Prasad in second fodder scam case, created a flutter on Thursday observing that “he got phone calls from the RJD chief’s men” while again deferring to pronounce the quantum of sentence. “Got phone calls from Lalu’s men,” PTI quoted the judge as making this observation during the proceedings. The judge, however, did not specify who were the people that called him.
The quantum of sentence is now expected to be pronounced on Friday. The court was yet to decide whether the quantum of punishment will be pronounced through video conferencing or in the court itself.
Arguments of only four convicts — Jyoti Kumar Das, Jagdish Sharma, Phoolchand Singh and Gopinath Das — starting their names in alphabetical order with the letter A to K was heard by the court on Thursday.
“I got many references for you but don’t worry, I will follow only law”, he reportedly told Lalu, according to ANI.
The courtroom, in the meantime, witnessed high voltage drama after lawyers protested against the judge for making unsolicited remarks made against them during the hearing of the case.
The case relates to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from Deoghar treasury 21 years back.
“When the courtroom became over crowded, the advocates not concerned with the accused persons in the case, were asked to leave the court. It was opposed by the advocates who refused to leave the court as they wanted to hear the historical judgment being pronounced by it,” said an advocate requesting anonymity. After the advocates refused to leave the courtroom, the court said it will not tolerate hooliganism in the court, he said.
“After hearing the remark, advocates demanded apology from the court saying that he had also been a lawyer before becoming a judge and the court had to apologise for the words used for us,” said the lawyer.
In an informal conversation, Lalu said he is a qualified lawyer listed in High Court and Supreme Court as well, to which the judge suggested him to take some more degrees in jail and become an icon for the inmates.
“Being a lawyer, you may get benefitted or it may prove
to be damaging for you,” observed the court. When Lalu complained that he was not being allowed to meet his people in the jail, the judge replied, “That is why you are being called here from time to time so that you could meet your people.” On his complaint that it was very cold in the jail, the judge suggested him to start playing ‘tabla’ or ‘harmonium’ in the jail and enjoy.
Lalu reiterated that he is innocent and has done nothing on which the judge said he was the Chief Minister and the Finance Minister of Bihar at that time but did not take immediate action in this regard. Then the judge asked him to go back to jail as his turn will come another day according to the alphabetical order.
The judge also asked Lalu that sentencing through video conferencing could be arranged if he had any problem in coming to the jail, on which he replied that he had no problem in coming to the court.
During the conversation, Lalu also pleaded the judge to drop the contempt notice issued against his son Tejaswi and others calling the remarks made by them as political.
Meanwhile, the judge also directed the jail authorities to shift three former IAS officers —
Beck Julius, Phoolchand Singh and Mahesh Prasad, also convicted in the case to shift to upper division cell.