NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday sought RJD chief Lalu Prasad ’s response to a CBI petition challenging the Jharkhand High Court decision granting him bail in a fodder scam case. The CBI argued that the HC granted bail on the “erroneous” ground that Prasad had served half the sentence awarded to him.

The HC had suspended the sentence during pendency of the appeal against the conviction and sentence of three-and-a-half years in a fodder scam case and granted bail on being told that Prasad had served 21 months in prison, which was more than half the total sentence.

A bench headed by CJI S A Bobde issued notice to Prasad and sought his response to the CBI’s plea that the cumulative sentence awarded in four fodder scam cases, which would run consecutively, was 41 years as per the mandate of Section 427 of Criminal Procedure Code.

Section 427 provides, “When a person already undergoing a sentence of imprisonment is sentenced on a subsequent conviction to imprisonment or imprisonment for life, such imprisonment or imprisonment for life shall commence at the expiration of the imprisonment to which he has been previously sentenced, unless the court directs that subsequent sentence shall run concurrently with such previous sentence.”

The CBI said separate sentences for offences under IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act would also run consecutively taking Prasad’s total jail term to 41 years as the trial courts had not directed the sentences in the four cases to run concurrently.

On the fodder scam case in which the HC granted Prasad bail, the CBI said he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in this case, that is 84 months. But he had ben in jail only for 22 months, of which approximately eight months were spent in hospital in a fully paid private ward where he was conducting his political activities as could be seen from the visitors’ register.

The CBI said the SC had refused an earlier plea for bail on the same ground. But the HC decided to grant him bail on the erroneous ground that Prasad had undergone half of the sentence in one case

