Lalu Prasad sentenced to five years jail in Doranda treasury case

Lalu Prasad, who has been convicted in four other fodder scam cases and served more than half of the jail terms in most of them, has also been ordered to pay ₹60 lakh as fine.

A CBI special court on Monday sentenced Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad to five years jail term and imposed ₹60 lakh fine in fifth case of the Animal Husbandry Department scam, which is commonly known as the fodder scam, related with fraudulent withdrawal of ₹139.35 crore from the Doranda treasury in Jharkhand.

“The court pronounced the quantum of sentence today to Mr. Prasad to five years jail term and ₹60 lakh fine in the Doranda treasury case. We’ll now appeal to the upper court for relief in the case”, Prasad’s advocate, Prabhat Kumar, said.

Along with 37 others, Prasad was convicted in the case earlier on February 15, 2022 and the court reserved its order on the quantum of sentence. It pronounced three years jail term to other 35 convicts in the case on February 15.

Prasad has been convicted in four other fodder scam cases and served more than half of the jail terms in most of them.

Suffering from multiple diseases, he is currently on bail and admitted to the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, from where he was virtually present in the court on Monday while the sentence was pronounced by judge S.K. Sashi.

The court completed hearing arguments in the case on January 29.

Apart from Mr. Prasad, former Bihar MP Jagdish Sharma, then Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Dhruv Bhagat, AHD secretary Beck Julius and AHD director K M Prasad and others were the other accused persons in the case.