In the fifth case (Doranda treasury Case) of the Animal Husbandry Department scam (commonly known as the fodder scam), a CBI special court sentenced Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad to five years in imprisonment and a fine of Rs 60 lakh in relation to the fraudulent withdrawal of 139.35 crores from the Doranda treasury in Jharkhand.
Nitish’s remark on Doranda Treasury Verdict
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters in Patna shortly after Mr. Prasad was sentenced by the court that he was not among those who had filed “litigation” against him (Mr. Prasad). Mr. Kumar pointed obliquely to senior RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari and said, “But he [Mr. Prasad] now has many people around him who were among the litigants.” “One such person has spent time with him [Mr. Prasad] as well as with me. He even tried to make me a co-petitioner, but I refused to become involved.”
Mr. Kumar went on to say that Mr. Prasad had to relinquish the Chief Minister’s chair in order to care for his wife. “Several instances [related to the fodder fraud] have been brought against him, and he has been found guilty in several of them.” When challenged about charges that Mr. Prasad was paying the price for his resistance to the BJP, which now runs the country, he said, “There may be some more.”
Later, Mr. Tiwari, who is currently the RJD’s national vice-president and was one of the signatories to the petition calling for a CBI investigation into the fodder scam, said, “It was not an individual’s decision to file the petition in the court, but of the party, whose leader in Bihar was Mr. Nitish Kumar, and he refused to sign the petition because he lacks strength in his spine.” But I have a query for Mr. Kumar: “Has he ever met Shyam Bihari Sinha, the ringleader of the fodder scam?”
“I battle those who create divisions,” Mr. Prasad tweeted in Hindi. They know they won’t be able to defeat us, so they try to entrap us in conspiracies. I’ve never been terrified or bowed down in front of anyone. I’m going to keep battling. The struggles of a fighter will never be understood by a coward.”
Tejashwi’s accusation on Central Government and BJP
“If Lalu Ji had shaken hands with the BJP, he would have been dubbed Raja Harishchandra,” said Tejashwi Yadav, Mr. Prasad’s younger son and Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly. Today, however, he is fighting the RSS-BJP and is in danger of being imprisoned. With everything going on, we’re not going to be terrified.” “The Central agency has forgotten the scams committed by Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, and Mehul Choksi,” he said of the CBI. Aside from the fodder fraud, it appears that no other scams have occurred throughout the country. Nearly 80 scams have been reported in Bihar, but where are the CBI, ED, and NIA? There is only one scheme and one leader in the country.”
Mr. Prasad had already been convicted, along with 37 others, of fraudulently withdrawing 139.35 crores from the Doranda treasury on February 15, 2022, and CBI court judge S.K. Sashi had reserved the quantum of sentence for the convicted. On January 29, the court finished hearing arguments in the case.
Case History in Brief
Mr. Prasad has previously been convicted in four other fodder scam cases, serving more than half of the sentences in each. Another case involving the scandal involving the illicit withdrawal of funds from the Bhagalpur treasury is currently pending in the CBI court in Patna.
The fodder scandal is a collection of 55 cases, which were eventually consolidated into a smaller number of cases, involving the alleged illicit withdrawal of 950 crores from the treasuries of several districts in undivided Bihar, largely between 1992 and 1995. Officials from the Animal Husbandry Department were accused of conspiring with politicians to remove funds to pay for bogus bills for fodder, medicine, and artificial insemination equipment. They allegedly carried animals in vehicles with two-wheeler registration numbers. The fodder scam had been exposed in 1996.