RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav was on Saturday sentenced to 3.5 years jail in a fodder scam case. Special CBI judge Shivpal Singh announced the sentence after hearing arguments on the quantum of sentencing. Apart from Lalu, convicts Phool Chand, Mahesh Prasad, Bake Julious, Sunil Kumar, Sushil Kumar, Sudhir Kumar and Raja Ram have also been sentenced to three-and-half-years in jail and a Rs 5 lakh fine was imposed. Former MLA Jagdish Sharma got the maximum jail term, 7 years, and a fine of Rs 10 lakh was imposed on him. The sentence was pronounced through video conferencing.
This was the second of the five fodder scam cases. It pertained to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deoghar treasury between 1991 and 1994. CBI court had acquitted another former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and five others in the case, relating to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 84.5 lakh from the Deoghar district treasury between 1990 and 1994 in then undivided Bihar. Lalu Prasad was the Chief Minister of the undivided state from 1990 to 1997.
Lalu Yadav has said his conviction is the result of political vendetta. After the sentencing, Lalu Yadav tweeted: "Rather than practising BJP's Simple Rule - "Follow us or We will Fix you". I will die happily fixing myself for Social justice, harmony & equality." Tejashwi Yadav said, "He was chosen (by the people) and he's in jail... those who had not been elected is now in government... Amit Shah was scared of Lalu-ji." The former Deputy Chief Minister is in the opposition after Nitish Kumar dissolved his alliance with Lalu Yadav and the Congress and partnered with the BJP. Senior BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain said, "Bihar's people have finally got justice"."The law is the same for everyone... a message has been sent that nobody is bigger than law," he said.
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