Yogi Adityanath calls for report after judge says 'got phone calls from Lalu Yadav's men'

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked for a report on Special Court Judge Shivpal Singh's claim that prior to Lalu Prasad Yadav's sentencing in the fodder scam case, he "got phone calls from RJD chief's men".

However, the judge had not clarified as to who made these calls to him.

Taking not of the matter, Adityanath has ordered Jhansi Commissioner to probe the matter and asked for a report at the earliest.

In a huge setback to the RJD, its supremo Lalu Prasad was on January 6 sentenced to three-and-a-half-years jail in a fodder scam case.

The court convicted Lalu Prasad and 15 others on December 23 in the case relating to the multi-million-rupee scam.

The sentences range from three-and-a-half-years to seven years imprisonment. The maximum fine imposed was Rs 10 lakh, slapped on three convicts including Jagdish Sharma, former Public Accounts Committee chairman, while they and three others got the seven years in jail too. Thre remaining nine were also sentenced to three and half years in jail.

The CBI court had acquitted another former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and five others in the case, relating to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 84.5 lakh from the Deoghar district treasury between 1990 and 1994 in then undivided Bihar.

Lalu Prasad was the Chief Minister of the undivided state from 1990 to 1997.

Convicted in another fodder scam case in 2013, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment and is on bail.

He was facing a total five cases in the fodder scam and the judgment in two more cases are likely to be pronounced within one month.

The multi-million-fodder scam surfaced in 1996 and at directive of Patna High Court, the investigation was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). When Lalu Prasad moved the Supreme Court against high court order, the SC ordered the Patna High Court to monitor the investigation.

Lalu Prasad had to step down as Chief Minister post in 1997 following his arrest in the scam.

A total of 62 cases were filed by the CBI and majority of them were transferred Ranchi after Jharkhand was carved out from Bihar in 2000. The special CBI court has delivered judgment in 48 cases and several politicians, bureaucrats and others have been convicted.