Former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has been lodged in the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi, Jharkhand. (File)The Supreme Court Friday sought a response from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a bail plea filed by RJD supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. On February 21, Yadav had filed the plea challenging the January 10 order of the Jharkhand High Court rejecting bail to him in three cases related to the multi-crore fodder scam. He has sought bail on medical grounds.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the CBI to respond in two weeks on Yadav’s plea.
The RJD chief has been lodged in the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi, Jharkhand. In January, prior to the rejection of the bail petition by the high court, Yadav’s lawyer Kapil Sibal had cited bad health. Lalu has so far got no relief from the Jharkhand High Court. His bail petitions in the Deoghar and Chaibasa treasury cases were rejected.
Yadav is serving time in Ranchi jail since December 2017 after being convicted in the fodder scam by a special CBI court under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act. He is simultaneously undergoing treatment at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranchi. Adding to the cumulative jail term of 14 years, the fines imposed on him in various cases amount to Rs 60 lakh.
The RJD chief has been convicted in over Rs 900-crore fodder scam cases which pertains to fraudulent withdrawal of money from Deoghar, Dumka and two Chaibasa treasuries of various districts of undivided Bihar in the 1990s when RJD was in power and Yadav the chief minister. He received bail in one of the two Chaibasa-treasury related cases and at present is facing jail in a case related to Doranda treasury pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of money to the tune of over Rs 89 lakh between 1991 and 1994.
