SG counters CBI Chief over dropping of cases against Lalu

In a snub to CBI Director Ranjit Sinha, the Solicitor General has opined that it was for the courts and not prosecutors to decide on dropping cases against RJD supremo Lalu Prasad.
In an opinion sent to CBI, Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran said dropping of cases against Prasad should be decided by "courts and not prosecutors", official sources said today.
Parasaran gave his view after difference of opinion between the CBI Director and CBI's Director of Prosecution O P Verma cropped up on closing three cases against the former Bihar Chief Minister.
Sinha advocated dropping of charges against Prasad in the pending cases which are offshoots of the infamous fodder scam in which the RJD leader has been convicted in one of the cases.

The "brief" note rendered to the CBI assumes significance as the agency may have to proceed now against Prasad, at present out on bail, and file chargesheets in the remaining cases -- alleged illegal withdrawal of Rs 3.13 crore from Dumka Treasury during the period from December 1995 to January 1996, Rs 84.53 lakh from Deoghar Treasury between 1990-94 and Rs 33.13 crore from Chaibasa Treasury during December 1992-93.
In recommending that the charges against Prasad be dropped, Sinha differed with Verma and other senior officers, including the head of CBI Patna Zone.
"I disagree with the Branch, HOZ and DOP. Since I do not agree with the DOP, let the matter be referred to the Solicitor General for his opinion on the legal issues raised in the petitions in all the three regular cases referred to in the comments of DOP," he had said on February 26.

The matter was examined by CBI at various levels in which the Director of Prosecution had opined that the present case did not attract provisions of Section 300(1) of CrPC and Article 20(2) of the Constitution.