The Jharkhand High Court on Friday refused to extend the provisional bail granted to Lalu Prasad Yadav and asked him to surrender before the Central Bureau of Investigation court by August 30, reported PTI. The former Bihar chief minister has been convicted in at least four cases related to the fodder scam.
Yadav is out on bail until August 27 on grounds of medical treatment and is currently admitted to the Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai. Yadav will now undergo treatment at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranchi, his lawyer Prabhat Kumar told ANI.
In a petition, Yadav’s counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi had sought an extension of three months, saying he needed treatment for anal abscess, kidney stone, and enlarged prostate glands. CBI counsel Rajiv Sinha objected on the ground that the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader had been out of jail for about 12 weeks and that medical care was available at RIMS.
Justice Apresh Kumar Singh turned down Yadav’s plea and ordered the state government to provide medical care whenever required.
In June, the High Court had extended Yadav’s provisional bail for six weeks till August 14 after he underwent fistula surgery in Mumbai. On June 29, the court provided another extension till August 14 on medical grounds. The plea was further extended to August 27.
Yadav was sent to the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi in December after a court found him guilty in several fodder scam cases. The scam – exposed in 1996 – involves the embezzlement of around Rs 1,000 crore from the state exchequer for the purchase of fictitious medicines and fodder for cattle between 1990 and 1997. In one of the six cases against him, he had fraudulently withdrawn around Rs 3.5 crore from the Dumka district’s treasury as the chief minister.
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