साथ हर बिहारी है अकेला सब पर भारी है सच की रक्षा करने को लालू का संघर्ष जारी है। मरते दम तक सामाजिक न्याय की लड़ा… https://t.co/wE7GocUB77 — Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) 1514027422000

A special CBI court on Saturday convicted former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and 15 others in a fodder scam case while acquitting six including another former chief minister Jagannath Mishra . Much of it is about financial bungling carried out in over two decades in Bihar. Yadav has been found guilty in the Deoghar case, in which more than Rs 89 lakh were fraudulently withdrawn from the Deoghar treasury between 1991 and 1994.The CBI had filed a chargesheet in the case way back in October 1997, naming 38 persons as accused. Eleven of the accused died during trial. Three accused turned approvers. Two accused confessed to their crime and were convicted accordingly in 2006-07. Yadav faces five cases in the fodder scam, of which four are pending. Yadav was earlier sentenced to five years in jail and fined Rs 25 lakh for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.5 crore from the Chaibasa treasury. The Supreme Court granted him bail in December 2013. In 2014, the Jharkhand high court stayed the trial against Yadav in four of the pending cases on the ground that a person convicted in one case could not be tried in similar cases based on same witnesses and evidence. The order, however, was quashed by the apex court, which ordered Yadav to stand trial in all pending fodder scam cases in which he was an accused.The fodder scam involved embezzlement of about Rs 900 crore from the Bihar exchequer. The accused created vast herds of fictitious livestock. Over a period of 20 years, the money was withdrawn from district treasuries on the pretext of procuring fodder, medicines and animal husbandry equipment. Some of the bills submitted included registration numbers of two-wheelers that transported cattle and details of mustard oil worth Rs 15 lakh to polish buffalo horns. Bihar Veterinary Association exposed the mafia in the animal husbandry department in 1985 in a press conference. But the scam was discovered in Chaibasa, the sleepy district headquarter of West Singhbum. Amit Khare, an IAS of the 1985 batch who was the district magistrate then, told TOI that he had never imagined he would unravel the multi-crore scam on a routine follow-up of orders of additional finance commissioner S Vijay Raghvan who wanted DMs to keep an eye on withdrawal from district treasuries. The directive was in light of Bihar's pitiable financial position and an alert issued by the RBI.On January 27, 1996, when Khare found that in November and December 1995, withdrawal of Rs 10 crore and Rs 9 crore, respectively, had been made he decided to make enquiries. "I doubted the withdrawals. I also thought it could be due to clearance of old bills. Anyway, I called for officials of animal husbandry department. I was told they had run away," Khare recalls.The officials alerted their top bosses, including the Auditor General of Bihar. A report was prepared. When the matter came into public view, there was a huge uproar. Yadav struck down a demand for CBI probe by the Opposition. The case, however, landed in the Patna High Court following a petition. In 1996, the CBI was asked to probe the matter. There were 53 cases in the fodder scam.