Lalu gets bail in one case, to remain in jail

Ranchi: The Jharkhand high court on Friday granted bail to ailing RJD president Lalu Prasad in one of the fodder scam cases in which he had been convicted in January 2018 and sentenced to five years in jail. While the court's decision in the Rs 33.67-crore Chaibasa treasury embezzlement case led RJD supporters to rejoice, Lalu won't be out of jail until at least two days after assembly polls in Bihar are over on November 7.
The RJD chief's bail plea in the Dumka treasury embezzlement case, in which he is serving a 14-year term, has been listed for hearing on November 9, a day before counting of votes.
Lalu was convicted in four fodder scam cases — two of them pertaining to fraudulent withdrawals from the Chaibasa treasury between 1992 and 1993, when he was the chief minister of undivided Bihar. The other cases are related to the Deoghar and Dumka treasuries. The Dumka case is the only one in which he is yet to be granted bail. Lalu's trial in the Doranda treasury case is still on while proceedings in the Bhagalpur treasury case are yet to resume after being stalled more than a year ago because of the jailed RJD chief's failure to appear in a Patna court.
Hearing his bail petition through video-conferencing on Friday, Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh asked Lalu to submit two personal bonds of Rs 50,000 each and make a bail deposit of Rs 2 lakh. The court also sought his medical report and details of all those who met him during his treatment at Ranchi's Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences.
Lalu's counsel, former Union minister and Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal, said his client has been in custody for 30 months, which is half of the maximum sentence pronounced by the CBI special court that convicted him on January 24, 2018. Lalu had been held guilty of approving withdrawals from the treasury in the name of purchasing fodder and medicines for livestock.
The fodder scam involved the embezzlement of more than Rs 970 crore in government funds during Lalu‘s reign in undivided Bihar from 1990 to 1997. He was first convicted in a fodder case in December, 2017, and was lodged at Birsa Munda central jail in Ranchi. He spent just about two months in the prison before he was shifted to Rims due to deteriorating health conditions.
Though he has been suffering from many diseases, including kidney ailments, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension are the main concerns. He was referred to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, for some months before being sent back to the city hospital in May 2018. In early August, he was moved to the plush Kelly’s Bungalow, the vacant official residence of the hospital director, to keep him protected from the Covid-19 outbreak
The opposition BJP said the decision to shift Lalu was taken because “he gets preferential treatment from the JMM-Congress-RJD mahagathbandhan government and has access to VIP facilities even though he is a convicted prisoner”.