The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is expected to file chargesheet against Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav and 55 others, even as raids on residences of his relatives and two controversial brothers-in-law at their native villages in Gopalganj district of north Bihar, last Saturday, failed to yield any substantial results.
CBI joint director (east) U N Biswas yesterday called on Bihar governor A R Kidwai to discuss the fodder scam. What transpired between the two is not known but CBI sources said the meeting centred around the impending chargesheet against Yadav and others in fodder scam.
Biswas is also said to have raised the issue of some Congressmen's objection to linking former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra with the controversial appointment of Ram Raj Ram, a co-accused in the scam and now under judicial custody, as director of the state animal husbandry department. They maintained that Mishra was not the Chief Minister in 1988 and, hence, there was no question of his (Mishra) conniving with the then leader of opposition, Laloo Prasad Yadav, in Raj Ram's appointment.
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CBI sources said that the chargesheet against Yadav and others was supposed to have been filed on Saturday but put off as the investigating agency's special judge Sudhansu Kumar Lal went on leave that day.
Another factor to have delayed the chargesheet is Biswas's involvement in the Gopalganj raids. Sources said the CBI had received definite information that the Chief Minister and his relatives were transferring important documents and valuables to other places.
In a separate development, Janata Dal activists assaulted Paras Nath Tiwar, the editor of Amritvarsha, a local daily, and ransacked his office last afternoon for publishing reports on the Chief Minister's involvement in the fodder scam.
Tiwari, who sustained head injuries, told this correspondent that he was attacked by party workers led by Patna district president Dev Muni Singh Yadav just before releasing the pages for print.
Senior Janata Dal dissident leader and former Bihar Minister, Ganesh Prasad Yadav, who went to meet Tiwari, described the incident as yet another example of Laloo's attempt to terrorise and gag the press.
Laloo's henchmen have unleashed a reign of terror throughout the state, he said.