New Delhi: The Supreme Court had rejected the plea of RJD chief Lalu Prasad transfer of trial court judge hearing the case against him in the fodder scam.
A bench of apex court which was headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, had restrained the trial court from passing the judgement in fodder scam case on July 9 and gave its order on Tuesday on plea of Lalu.
Lalu Prasad alleged trial court judge P K Singh is biased against him as he is a relative of P K Shahi in his plea, education minister in the government of Nitish Kumar in Bihar.
Yadav approached the Supreme Court after the Jharkhand high court had on July 1 dismissed his plea to transfer the case to another special CBI court from that of special CBI Judge P K Singh. The apex court said that the trial judge’s conduct was faultless and that it was wrong on Lalu’s part to bring bias charges at the fag end of trial.
Meanwhile the apex court had granted 15 more days to Lalu Prasad and others to complete their final arguments and five days to prosecution to complete their submissions.
The SC also asked the trial judge to pronounce judgment as soon as possible after giving 20 days time for arguments to prosecution and accused.
CBI had investigated the scam for a year and the charge sheet was filed in 1997. The charges were framed in 2000 following which the special CBI court commenced trial against Lalu Prasad and 44 other accused.
The case pertains to alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa Treasury in the 1990s. The FIR was lodged by Bihar government in February 1996 but the case was transferred to CBI a month later.
The plea of RJD had faced stiff opposition from Rajiv Ranjan who is leader of JD-U leader and submitted it would be a “travesty of justice” if the judge is transferred at the fag end of the trial.
Bureau Report
Leave a Reply