Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad was on Friday granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in in connection with a fodder scam case .
However, Mr. Prasad will remain in jail as he is convicted in some other cases related to the ₹950-crore fodder scam.
Hearing case RC 68 (A) / 1996, the High Court granted bail to him as he has served half of the jail term in the case of the fraudulent withdrawal of ₹33.67 crore from the Chaibasa treasury in Jharkhand in 1992-93 when he was the Chief Minister of undivided Bihar.
The court asked Mr. Prasad to submit two personal bonds of ₹50,000 each and deposit ₹2 lakh for securing bail.
Bail rejected last month
On September 11 last, the court rejected bail to him in the same case as he had not served half of the jail term by the date.
Mr. Prasad was awarded a five-year jail term in the case.
“We appealed to the court to grant Mr. Prasad bail today as he already has served half of the jail term in the case and the court granted him bail”, Mr. Prasad’s counsel Prabhat Kumar told mediapersons in Ranchi. “We’ll also appeal to the court in another case related to the Dumka treasury in November 2020 and seek bail for Mr Prasad”, he added.
The Dumka case pertains to the fraudulent withdrawal of ₹ 3.5 crore from the district treasury between 1991-1996.
In the Chaibasa case, on January 24, 2018, a special CBI court in Ranchi convicted Mr. Prasad and other accused.
However, in July 2019, the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to Mr. Prasad in a fodder scam case related to the fraudulent withdrawal of money from the Deoghar treasury of Jharkhand as he had served half of his three-and-a-half year prison term in the case. Mr. Prasad has been awarded varying sentences in various fodder scam cases.
The RJD chief has been undergoing treatment at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for multiple diseases. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he is housed at Kelly Bungalow on the hospital premises.
After being convicted in the fodder scam cases, Mr. Prasad has been at the Birsa Munda central jail of Jharkhand since December 2017. For the first time in the last 30 years, he will not be campaigning for the coming Bihar elections.
