New Delhi: A special CBI court on Saturday convicted RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav in a fodder scam case. The verdict becomes all the more significant as the last week has been marked by judgments, or rather acquittals of some very powerful political figures, in some of the most infamous scams in post-Independent India.
Two days ago a special court acquitted DMK leaders A Raja and Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum allocation case. On Friday, Bombay High Court gave former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Congress leader Ashok Chavan a major relief in the Adarsh Housing Society case by setting aside a sanction given by Maharashtra Governor to prosecute him.
All eyes are now set on the special court trying former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. The Rs 89 lakh Deoghar treasury case, in which the judgment is expected on Saturday, is part of five fodder scam cases in which Yadav is an accused.
Just as the 2G scam helped the then opposition BJP dethrone the Congress-led UPA government and win the 2014 general elections, the multi-crore fodder scam put Lalu Yadav out of power in Bihar state elections in 2005, when his RJD-led government was replaced by JD(U) and BJP. Yadav subsequently lost his Parliament seat too, following his conviction in one of the fodder scam cases.
With A Raja and Kanimozhi being acquitted in the high-profile 2G spectrum scam, Lalu now hopes to get a fillip in his political career through an acquittal.
The case has seen many twists and turns, so let’s look at all the intricacies of it through numbers.
64: The fodder scam is comprised of 64 individual cases and of these, 53 have been tried in Ranchi after the Supreme Court transferred the cases to Jharkhand in October 2001.
5: Lalu Prasad Yadav has been named in five of the fodder scam cases.
Rs 89 Lakh: This is the quantum of the alleged scam in Deoghar treasury, in which Lalu Yadav is an accused. Lalu is awaiting a verdict by a special court in this particular case on Saturday. The case is about fraudulent withdrawals of Rs 89 lakh from the Deoghar treasury between 1991 and 1993.
The money was withdrawn by officials from the Bihar animal husbandry department through forged vouchers on the pretext of purchasing fodder and other stuff for livestock.
Rs 900 crore: This is the total estimate of the loss that the fodder scam caused to the exchequer. About Rs 900 crore was withdrawn fraudulently by the animal husbandry department from various districts when Yadav was the Chief Minister of Bihar for two decades. In early raids in January 1996, it was revealed that huge funds were paid to non-existent companies for supplying fodder to the animal husbandry department.
500: This is the number of people who have been convicted and awarded punishments by various courts. One of them is Lalu Yadav. He was convicted in one of the cases of fodder scam – the Chaibasa treasury case — by a CBI court on October 3, 2013 and sentenced to five years in prison. Following this, he lost membership of the Lok Sabha. His appeal against the verdict is pending in the Supreme Court.
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