Former Bihar Chief Minister lalu Prasad will appear in a Ranchi court on Monday in a fodder scam case – RC38A/96, related to illegal withdrawal of money from Dumka Treasury. Prasad and 47 others, accused in Rs950 crore fodder scam case has been summoned by the court on Monday as some of them did not register their attendance for the last six months.
“As some of the accused persons in the case were not giving their attendance for the last one and a half months, Special Judge VII (CBI) (AHD) Shiv Pal Singh ordered for the physical appearance of all the accused persons,” said Prasad’s counsel Prabhat Kumar. If any of them fail to appear before the court on Monday, arrest warrant will be issued against him, he added.
The case relates to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs3.31 crore from Dumka treasury. It is currently running at the prosecution evidence stage, in which statements of prosecution witnesses are being recorded. As many as 240 prosecution witnesses had been listed by the CBI, of which the statements of 208 were recorded.
The court of Special Judge Shiv Pal Singh summoned all the 48 accused involved in fodder scam case RC 38A/96 after finding that some of them have not have registered their attendance for the last six months.
“The court, after inspecting the records, found regular attendance of 27 accused including lalu Prasad. It got to know that some were acquitted by the higher court and some died during the course of trial but didn’t figure out the whereabouts of six accused as their attendance was conspicuously missing,” said the counsel.
“There were 48 accused persons in the case, out of which some of them were found to be not submitting their attendance in the court. The court in order to remove confusion in this regard ordered physical appearance of all the accused persons including lalu ji, RK Rana, Jagdish Sharma and Beck Julius,” he added.
The court, according to Kumar, was lying vacant for the last two years after AK Rai was transferred from here. The new Judge came here one and a half months back and found that some of the accused persons have died while some of them were even giving their attendances in the Court. In order to streamline the trial process, all the 48 accused persons have been asked to be physically present before the Court.