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Orders reserved on Laloo, Mishra's bail plea

Justice M Y Iqwal of the Patna high court today reserved his order for tomorrow on the bail petitions of two former Bihar chief ministers -- Laloo Prasad Yadav and Dr Jagannath Mishra -- and two others in the multi-crore rupee fodder scam.

The two others were former state animal husbandry minister Vidya Sagar Nishad and RJD MLA R K Rana in the fodder scam case 64(a)/96.

Special CBI judge S K Lal had rejected bail petitions of the two former chief ministers and five others on October 29 last and remanded them to judicial custody till November 13. The accused had surrendered before the court on October 28 last on the directive of the Supreme Court.

The CBI judge, however, granted bail to former state animal husbandry minister Bhola Ram Toofani on health grounds.

The case against them was alleged illegal withdrawal of about Rs 9.7 million from the Deoghar treasury.

The judge reserved his order after hearing the arguments of the defence and the prosecution counsels for three days.

The CBI counsel, in his brief argument, furnished fresh allegations against Laloo Prasad Yadav saying that the latter had declined to initiate cases against the scam accused when the then finance commissioner V S Dubey moved a file seeking permission of the chief minister on the issue.

Yadav, instead of ordering institution of cases against the accused, asked the authorities to collect more evidence, the CBI counsel told the court.

However, on further persuasion, Yadav ordered lodging of FIRs only against individual drawing and disbursing officers and directed the then finance commissioner to collect more evidence with the sole intention of shielding politicians and top bureaucrats in the scam, the CBI counsel alleged.

He told the court that Yadav summoned former joint animal husbandry director Shyam Behari Sinha, alleged kingpin of the scandal, from Delhi in January 1996 and a deal of Rs 100 million was struck with him so that FIRs into the fraudulent withdrawals of only the year 1996 could be lodged.

The defence counsels pleaded innocence of their clients in the scam and prayed for bail.

UNI

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