Pronouncing its judgment in yet another fodder scam case RC45A/96 related to Dumka treasury, Special CBI court of Shivpal Singh on Monday convicted 37 persons out of a total of 42 accused persons in the case.
It happened to be the third fodder scam case related to Dumka treasury where the Animal Husbandry and treasury officials in connivance with the suppliers fraudulently withdrew more than Rs 34.91 crore against forged documents during 1991-92 to 1995-96.
Arguments on the point of quantum of punishment will be heard by the court from Tuesday onwards in alphabetical order taking up seven convicts every day. Sentencing in the case is likely to be pronounced on April 17.
All the convicted, which includes 15 AHD officials and 21 suppliers, have been found guilty under Sections 120B, 420, 409, 467,468, 471 and 477A of IPC and under Section 13 (2) r/w 13 (1) (c) and (d) of PC Act.
“37 out of 42 accused persons have been convicted while rests of the 5 suppliers, including 3 women, were acquitted by the Special CBI Court for not having substantial evidences against them. Sentencing is likely to be pronounced on April 17 as the argument on the point of quantum of punishment will be heard from Tuesday onwards in alphabetical order,” said Advocate of one of the accused persons Sanjay Kumar.
Those who were acquitted include Benu Jha, Harish Khanna, Madhu Mehta, lal Mohan Prasad and Saraswati Chandra.
The chargesheet in the case was filed on January 10, 2001 against OP Diwakar and 71 others while the charges were framed on September 11, 2003.
Kumar further added that 17 accused persons died during the trial and one of them SN Dubey was discharged by the High Court while other five accused persons are still absconding since investigation were initiated in the case.
“Five other accused persons namely Rameshwar Prasad Choudhary, Md Sayeed, Shailesh Prasad Singh, Naresh Prasad and Shiv Kumar Patwari turned approvers,” Kumar said. Meanwhile, two accused persons, Pramod Kumar Jaiswal and Sushil Jha, who pleaded guilty were convicted on confession, he added.
Initially, the chargesheet was filed against 72 accused persons in the Special CBI Court of Patna, but was later transferred to Ranchi after the bifurcation of Bihar as the place of occurrence was in Jharkhand.
Animal Husbandry Officials who were convicted on Monday include -- Sardendu Kumar Das, Fredrick Kerketta, Dineshwar Prasad Sharma, Hemendra Nath Verma, Krishna Kumar Prasad, Krishna Murari Sah, Manoranjan Prasad, Manoj Kumar Srivastava, Nand Kishore Prasad, Om Prakash Diwakar, Pankaj Mohan Bhuin, Pitamber Jha, Raghu Nandan Prasad, Radha Mohan Mandal, Bimal Kant Das and Shashi Kumar Sinha.
While, the suppliers who were convicted are -- Ajit Kumar Sinha, Ajit Kumar Verma, Anil Kumar Sinha, Sunil Kumar Sinha, Arun Kumar, Binod Kumar Jha, Dinesh Kumar Sinha, Dayanand Prasad Kashyap, Gopinath Das, Rajan Mehta, Harish Chandra Agrawal, Mohinder Singh Bedi, Prakash Kumar lal, Rakesh Kumar Agrawal, Ram Avtar Sharma, Ravi Nandan Sinha, Sanjay Agrawal, Sanjay Shankar, Sunil Gandhi, Sushil Kumar Sinha, Tripurari Mohan Prasad.