Law catches up with the corrupt: Ravi Shankar Prasad

BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad Thursday said the sentencing of Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad in the fodder scam showed that the law catches up with those involved in corruption.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, deputy leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha, said he had mixed feelings on the sentence, as the RJD leader had worked with him the JP Movement. (Jayaprakash Narayan, freedom fighter and political crusader, was popularly called JP. The movement he led resulted in the first non-Congress coalition taking office at the centre in 1977.)

The BJP leader said the verdict sent a message that the law catches up with those guilty of corruption.

"With corruption, the law catches up with you. That is the message," Ravi Shankar Prasad told a TV news channel.

Ravi Shankar Prasad referred to controversies over the 2G spectrum allocation and coal block allocation, and said that the "scams" had led to losses of thousands of crores of rupees to the exchequer.

A special CBI court in Ranchi Thursday jailed Lalu Prasad, former Bihar chief minister, for five years and fined him Rs.25 lakh for fraudulent withdrawal Rs.37.7 crore from the Chaibasa district treasury.

With Thursday's sentencing, Lalu Prasad, the founder leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, becomes the second politician to lose membership of parliament, in line with the July 10 ruling of the Supreme Court.