Congress calls CBI Centre's "pet parrot" after Lalu's conviction

Total 16 people, including Lalu Prasad Yadav, were found guilty. Six, including former Bihar CM Jagannath Mishra, were acquitted.

With a CBI court convicting RJD Lalu Prasad Yadav in the second of the many fodder scam cases, the Congress on Saturday called the CBI as "pet parrot" of the BJP-led-government at the Centre.

Immediately after the verdict was pronounced, Congress leader Manish Tewari addressed the media and said that even in the 2g case, the CBI had shown over eagerness to appeal against the acquittal.

"Lalu Yadav has been fighting this legal battle since 1996. It started when BJP leaders filed PIL against him in Patna HC. He & his lawyers are capable of fighting this case. I want to ask BJP why Srijan scam is not being investigated?," Tewari said.

Total 16 people, including Lalu Prasad Yadav, were found guilty. Six, including former Bihar CM Jagannath Mishra, were acquitted. Quantum of punishment will be pronounced on January 3.

CBI judge Shivpal Singh pronounced the verdict in a packed courtroom in the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from Deoghar Treasury between 1991 and 1994. Lalu Prasad Yadav and other convicts were taken into custody immediately after the pronouncement of the verdict amid tight security.

The scam, exposed in 1996, involved the embezzlement of around Rs 1,000 crore from the state exchequer for the purchase of fictitious medicines and fodder for cattle between 1990 and 1997, when Yadav was chief minister.

On September 30, 2013, he was held guilty in the first. Yadav was in jail for a few months in 2013 after a CBI court had convicted him in the first of the fodder scam cases. He got bail in December 2013, three months after he had been convicted. In May this year, the Supreme Court had reinstated criminal conspiracy charges against him in another fodder scam case.

In 2014, the Jharkhand High Court stayed trial against Prasad in four pending fodder scam cases on the ground that a person convicted in one case could not be tried in similar cases based on same witnesses and evidence. However, the Supreme Court quashed the High Court order in May this year and ordered Lalu to stand trial in all pending cases.

OneIndia News