Lalu Prasad Yadav, the leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), was granted bail in the Doranda Treasury case in Jharkhand, where he was given a five-year prison sentence. On Monday, the CBI filed a petition appealing that decision.
A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M. Trivedi declared that they are not giving notice but are instead including the case in the ongoing identical appeal that the CBI has already filed.
The bench said it will hear the matter together and was hesitant to serve notice, despite requests from additional solicitor general S V Raju and attorney Rajat Nair for it to be done so.
The Jharkhand High Court's ruling granting bail to Yadav in the case on April 22, 2022 has been contested by the CBI.
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Yadav, who is 74 years old, was convicted in several cases involving fodder scams but is currently free on bail due to his poor health.
A special CBI court in Ranchi convicted the former chief minister of Bihar to five years in prison and imposed a punishment of Rs 60 lakh in connection with the fifth fodder scam case, which involved the misappropriation of more than Rs 139 crore by Doranda Treasury.
On February 15 of last year, the CBI court found Yadav guilty.
On February 21, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment and fined Rs 60 lakh in the fodder scam case.
Yadav had held the finance portfolio of undivided Bihar, of which he was the chief minister, during the period of the scam.
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He had allegedly received kickbacks through the animal husbandry department.
The CBI's appeal of the high court's 2019 decision giving Yadav bail was grouped with the agency's other appeal in the top court's decision on Monday.
In a case involving the illicit withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deoghar Treasury, Yadav was granted bail by the high court on July 12, 2019, on the grounds that he had already completed half of his three-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
Yadav has been found guilty in five counts involving fraudulent money withdrawals from Jharkhand's Doranda, Deoghar, Dumka, and Chaibasa treasuries.
He was convicted in two cases for fraudulent withdrawals from Chaibasa Treasury.
Yadav was in prison in Ranchi since December 2017 before he was released on bail owing to his ill health.
(With PTI Inputs)
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