india

Updated: May 28, 2019 13:26 IST

Jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, whose party has suffered a major setback in the recent general elections, is in for more trouble as another fodder scam case is fast catching him up.

The Rs 950 crore fodder scam, probed by the CBI, relates to fraudulent withdrawal of public funds from different government treasuries over fictitious spends on fodder and other expenses for cattle.

Already convicted in four separate fodder scam cases, Prasad is facing trial in the last and fifth case related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 139 crore from Ranchi’s Doranda treasury.

The said case was registered in 1996 and involves 180 accused against whom charge sheets were filed. However, only 116 accused are currently facing trial, the rest 62 having died during the course of trial.

Earlier, the court of special CBI judge Pradeep Kumar had concluded the examination of 585 prosecution witnesses and fixed May 27 to commence the next trial stage, in which the court records the statements of accused persons under Section 313 of the code of criminal procedure.

“The court had announced that it would record statements of four accused persons on a single day. On Monday, statements of the accused could not be recorded as the judge didn’t hold court due to some administrative work. It is yet to fix a date to record statements of Lalu Prasad,” said advocate Prabhat Kumar, representing the RJD chief.

Prasad, who is currently undergoing treatment in custody here at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), had reportedly skipped meals and medicines for two days after the Lok Sabha poll results were out. His health is presently stable.

Prasad’s treating physician Dr Umesh Prasad said the RJD leader was counselled on Saturday night. “Since Thursday, Prasad did not have his meals properly. He took breakfast reluctantly, and did not have food till dinner. During counselling, we told him that such a routine could aggravate his existing health ailments. Following this, he had lunch as per the schedule on Sunday,” he said.

The RJD leader is suffering from a number of ailments like diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver, chronic kidney failure (stage 3), prostate, hyperuricemia, kidney stone and perennial infection. He had also undergone heart valve replacement surgery at Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai.