The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Yadav's plea for seeking the transfer of the trial court judge hearing the case against him in the fodder scam in Jharkhand.
A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, which had on July 9 restrained the trial court from passing the judgement in fodder scam case, gave its order on Lalu's plea.
Lalu Prasad had in his petition alleged that trial court judge P K Singh was biased against him as he is a relative of P K Shahi, Education Minister in the Nitish Kumar Government in Bihar, "who is his (Yadav's) biggest political enemy".
Yadav had approached the apex court after the Jharkhand High Court had on July 1 dismissed his plea to transfer the case to another special CBI court from that of Special CBI Judge PK Singh.
The case pertains to alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa Treasury in the 1990s. The FIR was lodged by Bihar government in February 1996 but the case was transferred to CBI a month later.
CBI had investigated the scam for a year and the charge sheet was filed in 1997. The charges were framed in 2000 following which the Special CBI court commenced trial against Lalu Prasad and 44 other accused.
RJD's plea had faced stiff opposition from JD-U leader Rajiv Ranjan who submitted that it would be a 'travesty of justice' if the judge is transferred at the far end of the trial.
He submitted that it would give a wrong impression to the entire country if the judge is transferred and raised a question on RJD supremo's petition seeking transfer of the judge who has been hearing the case since 2011.