Lalu Prasad convicted in corruption case

A court in India yesterday convicted senior Indian opposition politician Lalu Prasad Yadav in a corruption case. He was promptly sent to a high-security jail.

CBI judge Shivpal Singh in Ranchi, gave the ruling against Yadav, chief of Rashtriya Janata Dal and former chief minister of Bihar state, in the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from government treasury between 1991 and 1994.

The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on January 3.

Lalu Prasad and 15 other convicts were taken into custody immediately after the pronouncement of the verdict.

A charge sheet in the case was filed against 38 people on October 27, 1997. Eleven of them died and three turned approvers while two other accused confessed and were convicted in 2006-07, a CBI official said.

Yadav was found guilty of graft charges in one of the six cases lodged against him in the 1996 fodder scam. The court also found 15 others guilty in the case.

On the other hand, the court acquitted six others, including former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra.

Of the six cases in the scam, this was the second in which verdict was pronounced. The RJD chief was also held guilty by a court on September 30, 2013, in the first case but the Supreme Court granted him bail in December that year. In the aftermath of the verdict, he was disqualified from contesting elections.

Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi had ruled Bihar for about 15 years in the past.