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A CBI special court in Ranchi found Lalu Prasad, the president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and former Bihar chief minister, guilty of fraudulently withdrawing 139.35 crore from the Doranda treasury in the fodder scam case.

Lalu Yadav, who has now been found guilty in all five fodder scam instances in which he was cited as a conspirator, was present in the courtroom as Judge CK Shashi read out the verdict on Tuesday morning.

There were a total of 98 other accused in the room, 24 of whom were found not guilty. Former MP Jagdish Sharma and then-Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Dhruv Bhagat were among the 35 who were sentenced to three years in prison. As a result, they are eligible to seek bail.

On February 21, the extent of Prasad’s punishment will be decided. The former chief minister is currently being held in judicial custody.

Lalu Yadav had already been convicted in four other cases involving the infamous Rs 950 crore fodder scandal, including fraudulent withdrawals of Rs 37.7 crore and Rs 33.13 crore from the Chaibasa treasury, Rs 89.27 crore from the Deoghar treasury, and Rs 3.76 crore from the Dumka treasury. He was also fined Rs 60 lakh for his conviction in the Dumka case.

The hearing against 99 suspects, including Prasad, has been ongoing since February last year in the court of Special CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) Judge SK Shashi.

Following the conclusion of the arguments on January 29, the court requested that all of the accused be physically present on the day of the verdict.

55 of the 170 initial defendants have died, seven have become government witnesses, two have accepted the charges against them, and six have fled the country.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison and fined a total of Rs 60 lakh, has been granted bail in the four cases involving the treasuries of Dumka, Deoghar, and Chaibasa.

He has opposed all four of his previous convictions, and he will very certainly challenge this one as well. All of the cases involve the exploitation of government cash meant for cattle fodder.

He’s been sentenced to 14 years in prison so far, but he’s out on bail for the four convicted cases; the most recent (the Dumka treasury case) was in April of last year. The case involves funds taken by the Animal Husbandry Department of Bihar between 1991 and 1996, when Lalu Yadav was the Chief Minister. As part of his sentence, he spent more than 3.5 years in judicial custody.

The 73-year-old has been in prison since December 2017, spending the most of his sentence at Jharkhand’s Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences. After his condition worsened, he was transferred to Delhi in January of last year. Lalu Yadav will have to return to prison if he receives a term of more than three years in this case.

His son Tejashwi Yadav led the RJD in his absence, and is credited for the party’s impressive showing in the 2020 Bihar election; it was the first time Lalu Yadav had missed a state election campaign in 40 years.

His absence, on the other hand, has not resulted in him abandoning control of the RJD. Despite his legal and medical issues, he stated last week that he had no such plans and that his son, Tejashwi Yadav, would have to wait to succeed him as party leader.

Tejashwi Yadav is now the Bihar Assembly’s Leader of the Opposition.

Tejashwi Yadav on Lalu Prasad conviction

In response to RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s conviction in the fifth fodder scam case, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, the leader of Bihar’s Opposition in the Assembly, said the court’s decision would be honoured, but questioned if “there was just one scam in the country.” Tejashwi stated that they would appeal to a higher court for legal relief, adding that the ruling “had not affected the party’s morale.”