The Supreme Court today said that RJD chief Lalu Prasad cannot escape separate trials in the fodder scam on the ground that they covered the same offence, as a "general conspiracy" was hatched between 1988 to 1996 leading to the lodging of several cases in this regard.
The apex court held that distinct offences developing from a conspiracy would lead to separate trials, as holding of only one trial for such a conspiracy for separate offences would enable the accused person to "go scotfree" and commit a number of offences, which is not the intendment of law.
The top court brushed aside the contention that he cannot be tried separately for defalcations made in different periods in the fodder scam and disagreed with the Jharkhand High Court finding that a person convicted in one case could not be tried in similar cases based on the same witnesses and evidences.
"The modus operandi being the same would not make it a single offence when the offences are separate. Commission of offence pursuant to a conspiracy has to be punished. If conspiracy is furthered into several distinct offences there have to be separate trials.
"There may be a situation wherein furtherance of general conspiracy, offences take place in various parts of India and several persons are killed at different times," a bench of justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy said.
The bench said that Article 20(2) of the Constitution and section 300 CrPC talk about "same offence" and if distinct offences are being committed, there has to be independent trial for each offence based on such conspiracy.
It said in the case of misappropriation as statutorily mandated, there should not be joinder of charges in one trial for more than one year.
Regarding fodder scam, it said a general conspiracy was carried out from 1988 to 1996 which led to various offences for which there have to be different trials for each of the offence based upon conspiracy in which "different persons have participated at different times at different places for completion of the offence".
"Whatever could be combined has already been done. Thus we find no merit in the submissions made by senior counsel appearing on behalf of accused persons," the bench said.
Lalu was represented by senior advocates Ram Jethmalani and Surendra Singh.
The court refused to accept the counsel's submissions, saying the conspiracy which was hatched was a continuing one and has resulted into various offences and that it was not a case of double jeopardy.
It said that when a separate offence is committed, it becomes punishable and the substantive charge which has to be taken is that of the offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
"There was conspiracy hatched which was continuing one and has resulted into various offences. It was joined from time to time by different accused persons, so whenever an offence is committed in continuation of the conspiracy, it would be punishable separately for different periods as envisaged in section 212(2), obviously, there have to be separate trials.
"Thus it cannot be said to be a case of double jeopardy at all. It cannot be said that for the same offence the accused persons are being tried again," the bench held.
Senior advocate Surendra Singh, who represented Lalu Prasad, said since the conspiracy was between 1988 and 1996 which included the 1994-1995 period, the conviction has been made on that charge which included all the treasuries of the erstwhile State of Bihar.
He had argued there was no charge of separate conspiracy and no case of criminal conspiracy was made out for trial and identical circumstances were being relied upon by the prosecution.
The counsel further said there was no new or additional circumstances in the cases which have been quashed and the conspiracies referred to are one and the same in view of the trial which had concluded. Hence, there cannot be further trial on the conspiracy charge, he added.
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