Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad Yadav surrendered before a special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Ranchi on Thursday. Last week, the Jharkhand High Court had refused to extend the provisional bail granted to him.
“I am following the court’s order,” The Indian Express quoted Yadav as saying. “I am unwell but I am still surrendering.” The former Bihar chief minister, who has been convicted in at least four cases related to the fodder scam, was granted bail on medical grounds in May.
Yadav was undergoing treatment at the Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai and discharged on August 25. He reached Ranchi on Wednesday. He claimed he had been instructed not to speak to the media. “My health is not good,” he had said.
Yadav’s lawyer Prabhat Kumar told ANI that doctors of Asian Heart Institute will do a check up and then inform the court about his health.
Yadav was sent to Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi in December 2017. 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 In one of the six cases against him, he had fraudulently withdrawn around Rs 3.5 crore from the Dumka district’s treasury as the chief minister.
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