Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav suffered a major setback on Monday as the Supreme Court ruled that the former Bihar chief minister would stand trial for conspiracy charges in the fodder scam case.
The top court overturned an order of the Jharkhand High Court to allow a plea by the CBI which had opposed the dropping of the conspiracy charge.
It also said that the trial must be completed in nine months.
The former Bihar chief minister was convicted in the fodder scam case and awarded five-year sentence in October 2013, disbarring him from electoral politics. Lalu is currently out on bail. The Jharkhand High Court had, however, dropped the conspiracy charge against him in one of the cases in 2014, following which the CBI appealed against the move.
The charges are in connection with the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 96 lakh during Lalu’s chief ministerial tenure.
The High Court had dropped IPC 120, 120B, 409, 420, 471, 477, 477A and 13(2) under Prevention of Corruption Act against Prasad, giving him relief under section 300 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act and Article 22 of the Constitution which states that a person once convicted or acquitted cannot to be tried for the same offence again.
The fodder scam hit the headlines in the 1990s in undivided Bihar, when officials and politicians were accused of illegally withdrawing nearly Rs 1000 crore of public money on the pretext of purchasing cattle fodder.
In October 2013, Lalu was convicted in one of the fodder scam cases in connection with fraudulent withdrawing Rs 37.7 crore on fake fodder bills from Chaibasa treasury.
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