No Relief For Lalu As Court Extends Jail Term To 14 Years, Imposes Rs 60 Lakh Fine

Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was sentenced by a special CBI Court to seven years imprisonment in the fourth fodder scam case, thus extending his total time behind bars to 14 years, reports The Hindu. Yadav was sentenced to two consecutive terms under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act (PoCA) by Justice Shivpal Singh in Ranchi who additionally fined him Rs 60 lakh.

Yadav was convicted on Monday (19 March) in Dumka, Jharkhand for the fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.13 crore from the Dumka treasury along with 30 others.

In January this year, he was sentenced to a three and a half year jail term with a fine of Rs 10 lakh for the illegitimate withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deoghar treasury in 1997. This was his third conviction in the fodder scam.

The first conviction against him came in 2013 for the withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from the Chaibasa treasury. A fifth case relating to the withdrawal of Rs 139 crore from the Doranda treasury is pending in a Ranchi court.

Yadav has been lodged in the Birsa Munda Jail since December 2017 after the second conviction.

The Rs 900 crore Fodder Scam – also known locally as chaara ghotala – relates to illegal or fraudulent withdrawals made from the Animal Husbandry department of undivided Bihar in 1990s when the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was in power and Yadav was the chief minister.