Jharkhand High Court reserves order on fodder accused Lalu's court-transfer plea

RANCHI: Jharkhand High Court today reserved its verdict on RJD Chief Lalu Prasad's plea to transfer one of his fodder scam cases to another special CBI court from the present court of Pravas Kumar Singh.


After hearing arguments of Prasad's consul Ram Jethmalani on the petition, the single bench of Justice R R Prasad reserved it and fixed July 1 for announcing the judgement.

Prasad earlier this week had filed a petition before the High Court seeking transfer of RC-20A-96 case to another special court as he did not expect justice from the present special CBI judge Pravas Kumar Singh as he was allegedly a relative of two Bihar based Janata Dal(U) leaders, the RJD chief's political opponents.

The special court was to deliver the verdict on July 15 in the case relating to the alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from the Chaibasa Treasury in the 1990s.

The CBI court has been hearing arguments for the last one month and had on June 20 directed 44 fodder scam accused, including Prasad, to complete arguments by July 1. He had fixed July 15 to deliver the verdict on the RC 20A-96 case.

As of May 31, 2013, judgements were delivered in forty-four of the 53 cases in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam, which was unearthed during undivided Bihar regime.