In a major setback to RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Supreme Court today held that he has to face separate trial in each of the cases in which he is an accused in the multi-crore fodder scam and if found guilty, he may be punished separately.
Of the 64 cases arising from the scam, Yadav has been named as accused in six cases and he has already been convicted in one of the case involving fraudulant withdrawal of Rs 37.70 crore from Chaibasa treasury, which now falls in Jharkhand between period April 1, 1994 to January 31, 1995.
The other cases which are to be completed against him are relate to the treasuries of Chaibasa, Doranda in Ranchi involving Rs 139.39 crore, Dumka (Rs 3.31 crore) and Patna.
The apex court today set aside the order of Jharkhand High Court discharging Yadav in the case pertaining to Deoghar treasury, where an amount to the tune of Rs 85 lakh was misappropriated with the help of 250 vouchers and 17 fake allotment letters between period 1991 to 1994 and directed the trial court to conclude the proceedings in nine months from now.
Besides the RJD supremo, there are 37 other accused persons in the case.
The apex court also quashed the High Court order against former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and ex-chief secretary of Jharkhand Sajal Chakraborty against whom the proceedings were stayed on the same ground.
While brushing aside their contentions that they cannot be tried separately for each of the cases having similar facts and circumstances, the bench said, "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," a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy said.
The Jharkhand High Court had quashed one case against Lalu Prasad, four cases against Mishra and two cases against Chakraborty on the ground that they have been convicted in one of the cases for offences involving the same ingredients with respect to Chaibasa treasury for large scale defalcation of public funds.
The bench said that there may be a situation wherein furtherance of general conspiracy, offences take place in various parts of India and therefore each trial has to be separately held and the accused punished separately for the offence committed in furtherance of the conspiracy.
"In case there is only one trial for such conspiracy for separate offences, it would enable the accused person to go scotfree and commit number of offences which is not the intendment of law.
"The concept is of 'same offence' under Article 20(2) and section 300 CrPC. In case distinct offences are being committed, there has to be independent trial for each of such offence based on such conspiracy, and in the case of misappropriation as statutorily mandated, there should not be joinder of charges in one trial for more than one year except as provided in section 219," said Justice Mishra, who penned down the judgement for the bench.
The bench said "one general conspiracy (fodder scam) from 1988 to 1996 has led to various offences ... There have to be different trials for each of such offence based upon conspiracy in which different persons have participated at different times at different places for completion of the offence."
It directed the CBI to investigate the cases by the apex court in the wake of large scale defalcation of public funds, fraudulent transactions and fabrication of accounts in Animal Husbandry Department of Bihar, which was popularly known as fodder scam.
The apex court had directed CBI to investigate corruption in public administration, misconduct by the bureaucracy, fabrication of official records, misappropriation of public funds by an independent agency and inform the Chief Justice of Patna High Court.
CBI had registered a total of 64 cases in the fodder scam including 52 cases which involved withdrawal of huge sums of money from government treasuries falling within Jharkhand.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
