The Jharkhand High Court will on Friday hear former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s bail plea in the Rs 950-crore fodder scam. The Jharkhand HC had on August 28 deferred the case to Friday as the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI’s) counsel, assistant solicitor general Rajiv Sinha, had fallen ill.
The fodder scam case concerns fraudulent withdrawals amounting to Rs 33.67 crore from the Chaibasa treasury when Lalu Prasad was the chief minister of Bihar.
Devarshi Mandal, the former chief minister’s lawyer, had earlier said that Lalu Prasad’s chances of securing bail are high as the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader has served half of his jail term and that his health is deteriorating.
The RJD chief has been convicted in three-fodder scam cases so far. A trial court in Ranchi had held him guilty in the first of the six cases registered against him in September 2013 sentencing him to five years in prison. He was also banned from contesting polls and disqualified from Parliament.
He was again convicted in December 2017 in three other fodder scam cases. He was shifted from Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Jail in March 2018 to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences due to his health conditions and is currently being treated there.