CBI court verdict in 4th fodder scam case on Saturday

A Special CBI court on Friday issued notices to three ex-officials of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) office and fixed Saturday for pronouncing its verdict in the fourth fodder scam case involving RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

Lalu Prasad on Thursday filed a fresh petition in the court of Shivapal Singh to make then Auditor General in the CAG office an accused. Another former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and 30 others are co-accused in this case.

Hearing the petition, the court issued notices to former Accountant General P.K. Mukhopadhayay, former Deputy AG B.N. Jha and former Senior Accountant Pramod Kumar asking why they should not be made accused in the case.

They have been given three weeks to respond.

on Thursday, the court was to pronounce the judgment in the fourth fodder scam case involving former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad but deferred it after he filed the fresh plea.

The hearing in the fodder case -- relating to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.13 crore from December 1995 to January 1996 from the Dumka treasury -- was completed on March 5 and March 15 fixed for the verdict.

Lalu Prasad was convicted in the first fodder scam case in 2013 and awarded five years in jail.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief was convicted by a special CBI court in the second case on December 23, 2017 and awarded three-and-a-half-years imprisonment on January 6.

He was convicted in the third case on January 24, related to fraudulent withdrawals from the Chaibasa treasury, and awarded a five-year jail term.

He now faces two other cases -- one each in Ranchi and Patna.

The multi-million-rupee fodder scam surfaced in the 1990s when Lalu Yadav was Chief Minister of undivided Bihar. The probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation on the Patna High Court's order.

The bulk of the cases were transferred to Ranchi after Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000.

--IANS

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