3-4 years in jail for 16 accused in fodder scam case

A special CBI court here on Wednesday convicted 16 accused in the multi-million-rupee fodder scam case and jailed them for terms ranging from three to four years.

According to a government lawyer, the special CBI court of Judge S.N. Mishra convicted the 16 accused for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37 crore from the Chaibasa treasury.

The court sentenced 11 of them to three years and five others to four years in jail. The special CBI court had convicted former Bihar Chief Ministers Lalu Prasad and Jagannath Mishra in the same case in 2013.

The scam dates back to the 1990s in undivided Bihar.

Besides Prasad and Mishra, 42 other accused have been convicted in the case.

Those awarded jail terms on Wednesday included former treasury messenger and technical assistant Lal Mohan Gope, ex-account assistant of the treasury Bharateshwar Narain Lal Das and ex-assistant accountant of the treasury Sahadeo Prasad, all employees of the Chaibasa treasury when the scam was unearthed, the defence counsel said.

Das, Prasad, Gope all three former employees of the district treasury office in Chaibasa have been awarded three years' rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 35,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 30,000, respectively.

The 13 others who were jailed are private suppliers.

The CBI had filed a supplementary chargesheet against 20 people as they had not been included in the original list of accused due to not getting sanction, the lawyer said.

While one person is absconding, three others died during the trial, the counsel said.

The CBI filed the chargesheet against the 16 later. Fourteen of them supplied fodder and two were government officials.

CBI courts have delivered judgment in 42 cases related to the fodder scam.

--IANS

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