Fodder scam of Bihar, 1996
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Justices Mishra and Roy said, “The CBI ought to be guided by its manual. It is expected of it to be more vigilant. It has failed to live up to its reputation. In the instant case, lethargy on its part is intolerable..“ | Justices Mishra and Roy said, “The CBI ought to be guided by its manual. It is expected of it to be more vigilant. It has failed to live up to its reputation. In the instant case, lethargy on its part is intolerable..“ | ||
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| + | ==Pressures on the CBI court judge== | ||
| + | [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2018%2F01%2F05&entity=Ar00102&sk=9B7DDE2B&mode=text Jaideep Deogharia, Lalu’s well-wishers contacted me, will do what law says: Judge, January 5, 2018: ''The Times of India''] | ||
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| + | Special CBI court judge Shiv Pal Singh, who convicted Lalu Prasad in the second fodder scam case last month, said on Thursday that he was approached by the latter’s wellwishers. He made this remark while hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence for the fodder scam convicts, but didn’t give details. | ||
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| + | “Laluji, aapke shubhchintakon ke bahut se phone calls aa rahey hain, lekin nishchint rahiye, karunga wohi jo kanoon kahta hai (Laluji, a lot of your well-wishers are calling me up. But rest assured, I will do what the law says),” a close aide of Lalu who was present in the court quoted the judge as having said. As soon as the judge said this, Lalu responded saying, “If this was the case, it is wrong.” He added that he would ask his supporters not to do so. | ||
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| + | Though there was no discussion on Lalu’s sentencing, the court is learnt to have given him ample opportunity to talk his heart out. Known for his witty remarks, the RJD chief took the opportunity to make the sombre mood of the convicts lighter. Lalu’s aide told TOI that once the RJD chief was produced before the court along with the other 15 convicts, he sought lenient punishment for his party colleagues. “Huzoor RJD netaon ko maaf kar dia jaye, wo sabhi rajneetik bayanbaji kar rahe they, uske liye party unpar karwayi karegi | ||
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| + | (Sir, please pardon the RJD leaders, they were making only political statements and the party will take action against them),” he told the judge. | ||
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| + | Lalu told the judge the jail was very cold and his matter should be decided fast. The judge is learned to have told him to learn new skills like playing tabla during his stay in Jharkhand and make himself warm. Lalu also said that he is a bona fide member of the Supreme Court Bar Association and Bar Council of the Patna HC. “I too understand law as I have obtained a degree.” | ||
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| + | '''Lalu: I can’t hear in video conference''' | ||
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| + | The judge heard the counsel of the first five convicts. Lalu is the sixth convict in the alphabetical order. The judge said he would take a final decision on whether to hear the convict and his counsel in person or through video-conferencing on Friday after Lalu prayed for personal appearance. “Hujoor wahan thik se sunai nahi deta hai (Sir, I can’t hear properly in video conference),” the RJD chief said, when the judge announced further hearing through video conference. | ||
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| + | Lalu’s counsel Prabhat Kumar said the announcement of the sentence is unlikely on Friday. “The court has completed hearing the arguments of five convicts and 11of them are still left. Since the proceedings would begin in the second half, there are less chances of the arguments being completed and the verdict announced on the same day,” he said. | ||
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| + | Counsel of the convicts prayed to the court to be lenient with their clients saying that they are all senior citizens and suffering from multiple health conditions. “Most of them have already served a term in the jail and have also been facing trial in court for more than two decades,” one of the counsel said. | ||
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| + | Sources said the court heard the convicts individually too and on request of former IAS officer Beck Julius and Mahesh Prasad, directed the jail authorities to lodge them in the upper grade cells within the Birsa Munda central Jail in Hotwar. Lalu is charged under Sections 420 and 120B of the IPC and Section 13 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, warranting a sentence of 2-7 years. | ||
Revision as of 21:03, 6 January 2018
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Fodder scam: a timeline, January 27, 1996-December 23, 2017
From: Piyush Tripathi, December 24, 2017: The Times of India
See graphic:
The fodder scam, a timeline, January 27, 1996-December 23, 2017
1996/ The officers who unravelled the Fodder Scam
January 3, 2018: The Times of India
From: January 3, 2018: The Times of India
The probe into the thousand crore rupee fodder scam, which rocked Bihar in the 1990s, was slow and painstaking. It all began with a raid conducted by a bunch of forthright government officials in Chaibasa in 1996. TOI profiles the men of honour
2017: found guilty
December 23, 2017: The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
RJD chief Lalu Prasad was found guilty in one of the four pending fodder scam cases
In the second blow to the Yadav family on the same day, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad was on Saturday found guilty in one of the four pending fodder scam cases.
Special CBI judge Shivpal Singh pronounced the verdict in a packed courtroom, reported PTI. Lalu was among the 15 of the 22 accused found guilty by a special CBI court in Ranchi for the fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 84.5 lakh from the Deoghar district treasury between 1994 and 1996.
The convicts, including the RJD chief, were taken into custody immediately after the pronouncement of the verdict. Seven of the accused, including former Bihar CM Jagannath Mishra, were acquitted, reported ANI.
Earlier in the day, before the verdict was pronounced, Lalu had expressed his "respect" for the country's courts. "We trust and respect the judiciary. We will not let BJP's conspiracies work. The way things happened in the 2G case, they way they happened for Ashok Chavan, the same will happen for me," he said.
The RJD chief faced five cases in the fodder scam, of which now three are pending. He had been sentenced to five years in jail and fined Rs 25 lakh for the fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.5 crore from the Chaibasa treasury in October 2013, but was granted bail by the Supreme Court in December 2013.
In 2014, the Jharkhand high court had stayed the trial against the former Bihar chief minister in four of the pending cases saying that a person convicted in one case could not be tried in similar cases based on same witnesses and evidence. The order, however, was quashed by the apex court, which ordered Lalu to stand trial in all pending fodder scam cases in which he was an accused.
Lalu had stressed that the judgment in the fodder scam would not adversely impact the RJD+ , which would continue to be led by his sons Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav. Hours before the judgment in the fodder scam, the Enforcement Directorate filed a chargesheet against Lalu's daughter Misa Bharti and her husband in a money laundering case.
Rulings by the Supreme Court
Accusing Lalu Prasad Yadav/ 2017
Trials Must For Each Of Many Cases’
The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow to RJD chief Lalu Prasad by reviving the quashed trial in the Deoghar treasury withdrawal case against him and ruling that he will have to face separate trials in the 30-year-old fodder scam cases.
In what could provide political ammunition to the opponents of Prasad, who was convicted in one of the fodder scam cases and has, as a consequence, been debarred from contesting polls, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy said his conviction and five-year sentence for conspiracy in the Rs 37.7 crore fraudulent withdrawal from the Chaibasa treasury would not fetter the CBI from prosecuting him separately in other fodder scam cases.
Every withdrawal constituted a distinct offence requiring separate trial, the apex court bench said.
The setback coincides with a stream of information about hitherto undeclared assets of the Prasad clan, and can only weaken his hand in his dealings with friend-turned-rival-turned-ally, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. The SC was remarkably harsh on Jharkhand high court's Justice R R Prasad, who on November 14, 2014 had quashed the conspiracy charge against Prasad, ex-CM Jagannath Mishra and ex-bureaucrat Sajal Chakraborty . The SC ruling means Mishra and Chakraborty , too, will face multiple trials in fodder scam cases.
Rectifying the HC's “mis take“, the bench asked the trial court to complete trial against Prasad in nine months. Prasad's main argument was that the fodder scam was part of one conspiracy and as he had already been convicted for conspiracy in the Chaibasa case, he could not be punished again for conspiracy in the Deoghar case as doing so would be violative of his fundamental right under Article 20 (2) of the Constitution, which bars puni shing a person twice for the same offence.
Rejecting this, the bench held that fraudulent withdrawals from different treasuries as part of the mega fodder scam marked distinct offences requiring separate trials. Accepting solicitor general Ranjit Kumar's arguments, the bench said, “Though there was one general charge of conspiracy, which was allied in nature, the charge was qualified with the substantive charge of defalcation of a particular sum from a particular treasury in a particular time period. “The charge has to be taken in substance for the purpose of defalcation from a particular treasury in a particular financial year exceeding the allocation made for the purpose of animal husbandry on the basis of fake vouchers, fake supply orders etc. The sanctions made in the budget were separate for each and every year.
“Each defalcation would constitute an independent offence. Thus, by no stretch it can be held to be in violation of Article 20 (2) of the Constitution or Section 300 of the Criminal Procedure Code.Separate trials in such cases are the very intendment of law. There is no room to raise such a grievance. Though evidence of general conspiracy has been adduced in cases which have been concluded, it may be common to all the cases but at the same time offences are different at different places, by different accused persons.“
"Illegal" quashing of conspiracy charge by Justice Rakesh Ranjan
Stricturing Justice Rakesh Ranjan Prasad for “illegally“ quashing the conspiracy charge against RJD chief Lalu Prasad in the Deoghar treasury withdrawal case, the Supreme Court emphasised that the judge had taken a contrary position earlier in another fodder scam-linked case and said the reasons for the stark contradiction were “not understandable“.
As it indicted Justice Prasad, then in the Jharkhand HC, the SC also censured the CBI for “intolerable lethargy“ in not appealing the verdict favouring the RJD strongman.
Justice Prasad was transferred from Jharkhand HC to Manipur HC in February 2016 and became its chief justice in September 2016. He had given relief to Prasad on November 14, 2014 on the ground that the RJD chief had already been convicted for conspiracy in the Chaibasa treasury case in September 2013.
Justice Prasad was of the opinion that the entire fodder scam was one conspiracy and no person should be punished twice for the same offence. Justice Prasad is scheduled to retire on June 30, if he is not appointed as a judge of the SC by then.
An SC bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy tore into Justice Prasad's logic and showed him his previous judgment in a petition filed by R K Rana, a fodder scam co-accused. In Rana's case, Justice Prasad had held that separate trial for separate offences in fodder scam was permissible as the conspirators were different for different fraudulent withdrawals.
“Judicial discipline requires that such a blatant contradiction in such an important matter should have been avoided. The order passed in the case of R K Rana was on sound basis and though the court had noted that there was some overlapping of facts but the offences were different, it, however, has taken a different view in the impugned order for the reasons which are not understandable,“ the SC bench said.
“The court (Justice Prasad) ought to have been careful while dealing with such matters and consistency is the hallmark of the court due to which people have faith in the system and it is not open to the court to take a different view in the same matter with reference to different accused persons in the same facts and same case,“ Justices Mishra and Roy said.
“Such inconsistent decision-making ought to have been avoided at all costs so as to ensure credibility of the system. The impugned orders are palpably illegal, faulty and contrary to the basic principles of law and judge has ignored large number of binding decisions of this court while giving impermissible benefit to the accused persons and delayed the case for several years. Interference had been made at the advanced stage of the case which was wholly unwarranted and uncalled for,“ they said.
The CBI too got the wrong end of the stick for developing cold feet while challenging judgments in favour of Lalu Prasad.
Justices Mishra and Roy said, “The CBI ought to be guided by its manual. It is expected of it to be more vigilant. It has failed to live up to its reputation. In the instant case, lethargy on its part is intolerable..“
Pressures on the CBI court judge
Special CBI court judge Shiv Pal Singh, who convicted Lalu Prasad in the second fodder scam case last month, said on Thursday that he was approached by the latter’s wellwishers. He made this remark while hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence for the fodder scam convicts, but didn’t give details.
“Laluji, aapke shubhchintakon ke bahut se phone calls aa rahey hain, lekin nishchint rahiye, karunga wohi jo kanoon kahta hai (Laluji, a lot of your well-wishers are calling me up. But rest assured, I will do what the law says),” a close aide of Lalu who was present in the court quoted the judge as having said. As soon as the judge said this, Lalu responded saying, “If this was the case, it is wrong.” He added that he would ask his supporters not to do so.
Though there was no discussion on Lalu’s sentencing, the court is learnt to have given him ample opportunity to talk his heart out. Known for his witty remarks, the RJD chief took the opportunity to make the sombre mood of the convicts lighter. Lalu’s aide told TOI that once the RJD chief was produced before the court along with the other 15 convicts, he sought lenient punishment for his party colleagues. “Huzoor RJD netaon ko maaf kar dia jaye, wo sabhi rajneetik bayanbaji kar rahe they, uske liye party unpar karwayi karegi
(Sir, please pardon the RJD leaders, they were making only political statements and the party will take action against them),” he told the judge.
Lalu told the judge the jail was very cold and his matter should be decided fast. The judge is learned to have told him to learn new skills like playing tabla during his stay in Jharkhand and make himself warm. Lalu also said that he is a bona fide member of the Supreme Court Bar Association and Bar Council of the Patna HC. “I too understand law as I have obtained a degree.”
Lalu: I can’t hear in video conference
The judge heard the counsel of the first five convicts. Lalu is the sixth convict in the alphabetical order. The judge said he would take a final decision on whether to hear the convict and his counsel in person or through video-conferencing on Friday after Lalu prayed for personal appearance. “Hujoor wahan thik se sunai nahi deta hai (Sir, I can’t hear properly in video conference),” the RJD chief said, when the judge announced further hearing through video conference.
Lalu’s counsel Prabhat Kumar said the announcement of the sentence is unlikely on Friday. “The court has completed hearing the arguments of five convicts and 11of them are still left. Since the proceedings would begin in the second half, there are less chances of the arguments being completed and the verdict announced on the same day,” he said.
Counsel of the convicts prayed to the court to be lenient with their clients saying that they are all senior citizens and suffering from multiple health conditions. “Most of them have already served a term in the jail and have also been facing trial in court for more than two decades,” one of the counsel said.
Sources said the court heard the convicts individually too and on request of former IAS officer Beck Julius and Mahesh Prasad, directed the jail authorities to lodge them in the upper grade cells within the Birsa Munda central Jail in Hotwar. Lalu is charged under Sections 420 and 120B of the IPC and Section 13 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, warranting a sentence of 2-7 years.
