34 months or 42? Conflicting claims on Lalu’s jail stay adds twist to bail plea | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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34 months or 42? Conflicting claims on Lalu’s jail stay adds twist to bail plea

Hindustan Times, Ranchi | ByBedanti Saran | Edited by Abhinav Sahay
Nov 27, 2020 02:32 PM IST

Lalu Prasad moved bail application in the third and the last case on the ground that he had completed half (42 months & 28 days) of the seven years sentence awarded to him in the case.

The Jharkhand high court on Friday deferred hearing on RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s bail plea in connection with one of the fodder scam cases to December 11.

Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) leader and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has sought bail in a fodder scam case claiming to have served half of his sentence.(PTI Photo)
Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) leader and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has sought bail in a fodder scam case claiming to have served half of his sentence.(PTI Photo)

The former Bihar chief minister has been languishing in jail since December 23, 2017, after his conviction in three fodder scam cases in quick succession.

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Prasad has already secured bail in two cases. He moved bail application in the third and the last case on the ground that he had completed half (42 months & 28 days) of the seven years sentence awarded to him in the case.

But, the CBI, in its reply, said that Prasad in this case had only completed 34 months and some days in custody, which is still about eight months short of the half-sentence mark.

In order to clear the ambiguity, Prasad’s senior lawyer Kapil Sibal sought two weeks’ time to furnish a detailed computation of the period served by his client in custody.

The bench of justice Aparesh Kumar Singh then posted the matter for further hearing on December 11.

The case relates to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.76 crore from Dumka treasury during December 1995 to January 1996.

A special CBI court, in 2018, had sentenced Prasad to 14 years of imprisonment--seven under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections and another seven under Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act-- in the said case.

It had expressly said that both sentences would run consecutively.

However, Prasad’s lawyers hope that the high court will strike down this decision, and let the two sentences run concurrently. If that happens, Prasad has to undergo seven-year imprisonment in this case.

Also Read: Storm over bribe phone calls ends Lalu Prasad’s VIP bungalow stay

The RJD leader, who has been undergoing treatment in custody at Ranchi’s Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for over two years, pleaded that he had completed half of the seven year sentence awarded to him in this case.

He argued that in earlier two cases he was granted bail on completing half of the sentences.

Prasad’s Ranchi-based lawyer Prabhat Kumar said, “According to our calculation, Prasad has completed 42 months and 28 days in prison. This is more than half of the seven-year sentence.”

Prasad had suffered a major jolt in the fodder scam case on September 30, 2013, when a trial court in Ranchi held him guilty in the first of six cases against him. The conviction got him five years in prison, disqualification from the Parliament and a ban on contesting elections. He was given bail by the Supreme Court in December that year.

His troubles renewed in 2017-18 when he was convicted and sentenced to different terms of imprisonment in three separate fodder scam cases in quick succession. He is still facing trial in two cases.

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