A Special CBI Court of Shivpal Singh on Thursday deferred judgment in fodder scam case RC68A/96, involving RJD chief lalu Prasad and 30 others, till disposal of the petition filed by him under Section 319 of CrPC seeking inclusion of then Accountant General (AG) Bihar PK Mukhopadhyay and two others as accused persons for not mentioning the fraudulent withdrawal in the CAG report during the period 1990-96 despite having all knowledge about it.
lalu, in his petition, has also accused the CBI of concealing the facts during its investigation and before the CBI court as well. The other two officials against whom the RJD chief wanted summons to be issued by the court are Deputy Accountant General BN Jha and Senior Director General in AcG’s Office Pramod Kumar.
“The judgment has been deferred till disposal of the petition filed by us demanding issuing summons against then officials of AG’s Office from whom the CBI had seized the fraudulent as well as the genuine bills and some of the witnesses have also hinted that they were threatened to keep away from the episode by the officials of AG, Bihar,” said lalu’s advocate Prabhat Kumar. The judgment date will be pronounced on Friday only after the decision comes in this regard, he added.
“The petition was filed by us on Monday while the CBI filed its rejoinder today in which the court has fixed a date for tomorrow for decision after hearing arguments from both the sides,” said the advocate. The contention over the CBI’s role was being raised since the beginning but it could be proved only after the statements of the witnesses were recorded in the court, he added.
lalu’s counsel also assured that it will make sanction order available against the three persons if required, after the court questioned whether it will be needed in their case or not as two of the three accused persons have already retired.
The CBI, on the other hand, refuting lalu’s allegations submitted before the court that the petition was not maintainable as the matter had already been settled by the Jharkhand High Court and alleged that it was a deliberate attempt to delay the judgment which was against the spirit of the order passed by the apex court on May 8, 2016 to dispose of the case by February 6, 2017.
“This petition is also not maintainable in the court as it is filed on the basis of the photostat copies of certain papers and no certified copy was submitted in this regard,” argued the CBI counsel.
RC68A/96 relates to the alleged withdrawal of Rs 3.76 crore against actual allotment of Rs 1.5 lakh with the help of 96 fake vouchers from Dumka Treasury in financial year 1995-96.
lalu is presently lodged in Birsa Munda Central Jail after a special CBI court on January 6, pronounced 3.5 years’ jail and also slapped a fine of Rs 10 lakh for him in fodder scam case RC64A/96, related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 894,417 lakh from Deoghar Treasury with the help of 6 fake allotment letters during 1991 to 1994. A total of six cases were lodged against lalu out of which he has already been convicted in three cases.