The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a separate trial for Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad in the fodder scam case. The ruling came after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenged the clean chit given by the Jharkhand High Court to Lalu in the case.
The fodder scam refers to large-scale embezzlement of funds meant to buy fodder for cattle in Bihar. It had started with people in the lower rungs of the state bureaucracy but ultimately rose higher and higher till chief ministers like Lalu and Jagannath Mishra before him were also accused of it.
By the time it was busted in the 1990s, the scam was estimated to have led to an embezzlement of Rs. 940 crore of public funds. Adjusted for inflation, that amount could be placed in the Rs. 3,500-4,000 crore bracket in 2017. The scam had also ended the reign of Lalu Prasad as Bihar chief minister.
A CBI court had finally convicted Lalu and 44 others in various cases in 2013, handing him a five-year prison sentence. He was also barred from contesting elections for six years, as per the law. The Jharkhand High Court, however, had ordered the dropping of criminal conspiracy charges against Lalu on the ground that he had already been either convicted or acquitted of those charges.
These are the charges that have come back to haunt Lalu, who will face a separate trial now, according to the Supreme Court order. The trial court will have to conclude its procedure in the case within nine months, the apex court has added.
The development spells fresh problems for Lalu, who has recently been exposed as being controlled by gangster-turned-RJD politician Mohammad Shahabuddin. The development has led many political rivals to call for Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar's resignation. The RJD and the JD-U run a coalition government in the state.
The Supreme Court order will also affect Nitish the same way as the expose. It remains to be seen how Lalu reacts to the development, and how Nitish manages — if at all — to see this crisis through.
