Lalu hands over passport to CBI court

Ranchi, Jul 11 (UNI) Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, an accused in the Rs 950-crore fodder scam, today handed over his passport to a special court of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here.

Last month, Mr Prasad was given the passport for he had to lead a high-level delegation to five European countries.

Mr Prasad appeared before the court of Mr Sanjay Prasad in the Jharkhand capital as per his assurance given earlier.

The railway minister's passport was seized under the case number 38/96.

He came by an Indian Airlines flight from New Delhi and arrived here at about 1300 hours.

Besides, he appeared in two other special courts relating to the scam.

He informed the special court of U S P Sinha of his handing over the passport and then he appeared before another court of Satya Narayan Prasad in which the case number 47/96 came up for hearing.

On June 19, in partial relaxation of the blanket ban imposed on Mr Prasad's foreign junkets till the conclusion of hearing in the fodder scam case, a special court in Patna granted him permission to undertake his proposed tour of Europe from June 23 to 28.

Mr Prasad had assured the court of handing over the passport personally.

Special CBI judge Munilal Paswan had pronounced in his judgement after hearing a petition seeking permission for the tour that Mr Prasad would lead an Indian delegation to various European countries for the development of Indian Railways.

The railway minister led a high-level delegation to Britain, France, Austria, Italy and Germany. He participated in the meeting of the Union of International Railways in Paris and inked an agreement at Rome with the Italian National Railways.

A similar permission had earlier been granted to him to visit Pakistan as a member of a delegation and the visit for attending the funeral of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The more than decade-long scam that rocked united Bihar saw the ouster of Mr Prasad from the chief minister's chair. Besides, former chief minister Jagannath Mishra and many senior ministers and bureaucrats were accused in the scam.

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