Patna court closes case against Lalu, others on state prayer

PATNA: A district court here today accepted Bihar government's plea to withdraw a case against RJD chief Lalu Prasad, his two minister-sons and others for vandalism and stopping government officials from discharging their duties during an RJD-sponsored bandh last year and discharged all the accused.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Om Prakash accepted the plea of government lawyer for withdrawal of the case against 262 RJD leaders including Lalu Prasad, his sons Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, besides state party chief Ramchandra Purve.

Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav are Deputy Chief Minister and Health Minister respectively.

The government lawyer made a plea by moving an application for withdrawal of case under CRPC 321, which was accepted by the court. The court discharged all the accused and closed the case.

A case was registered against them with Kotwali police station in Patna on July 27, 2015, under various sections of IPC which related to vandalism and preventing government officials from discharging their duties.

The charge sheet was filed in the case on October 13 last year.

RJD, which was not a part of the state government at that time but was supporting Nitish Kumar ministry from outside, had enforced a Bihar bandh on July 27, 2015 demanding the release of caste census report by the union government.