Jharkhand high court rejects Lalu Prasad's bail petition

RANCHI: Things are not moving in the right direction for former Bihar chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad whose bail petition was ultimately rejected by the Jharkhand high court on Thursday. Lalu is serving his five year sentence in case no RC20A/96 of the fodder scam after being convicted by the special CBI court of PK Singh on September 30.

Upholding the objections raised by CBI in denying bail to the Lalu, who is accused in four more cases of the fodder scam, court of Justice RR Prasad rejected the bail plea on merits. "We are waiting for the detailed judgement that runs into several pages to take a decision further," said Anil Kumar Sinha, Lalu's counsel when asked if they are planning to move the apex court.

Expressing shock over the high court rejecting the bail application, RJD leader Rajneeti Prasad said that they have not lost hopes. "We are with our leader (Lalu) and would support him in every condition. The party is sure that RJD chief would come out clean in this matter," he said.

After being sentenced on October 3, Lalu's counsel failed to move the high court immediately because of Durga Puja vacations in the court. Eventually the petition to set aside, lower court judgement and release him on bail till the time case was disposed was filed on October 17. After admitting the appeal petition high court sought lower court records (LCR) and heard arguments of Lalu's counsel for the part that dealt with the bail application. Petitioners counsel had requested the court to take Lalu's age and past record into consideration for granting bail, objecting to which CBI counsel on Wednesday had argued that it was for the first time that the people in high offices of power have been brought to book in the fodder scam and that, Lalu's involvement in the conspiracy of multicrore fodder scam was proved in the lower court beyond any doubt.

Things have not been working for Lalu since the time special CBI court had announced to pass a verdict in the case in July this year. Initially Lalu failed to get the case shifted to any other court on grounds of accusing special CBI judge PK Singh of biasness. His appeals got rejected by the Supreme Court. His membership to the lower House was scrapped after being sentenced in the light of a recent Supreme Court order and now when the bail petition has been rejected by high court he would not have any opportunity to move the apex court because of the impending festive vacations ending November 11.