New Delhi: The Supreme Court yesterday gave the CBI a week’s time to spell out its stand on Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad’s plea for transfer of trial in a fodder scam case against him to another court.
The scam is linked to alleged financial lapses in the Bihar Animal Husbandry Department in the 1990s.
An apex court bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi adjourned the hearing after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) failed to tell the court about its position on Lalu Prasad’s plea.
As counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Lalu Prasad, also sought a week’s time to file an additional affidavit in support of his plea seeking transfer of the trial, Justice Ranjan Gogoi observed: “Why don’t you say whatever you have to say? Why are you delaying the matter?”
“That is why we issued notice,” Chief Justice Sathasivam said when Jethmalani told the court that while Lalu Prasad’s arguments were going on, the judge of the special trial court on July 1 said he would pronounce the verdict on July 15. Opposing Lalu Prasad’s plea for transfer of trial to another court for fear of bias, senior counsel Ranjit Kumar told the court that Lalu Prasad’s counsel “argued for 13 days and arguments from both sides took place for more than one year. There were 275 days of hearing. Seventeen years have gone by (since the scam took place). There was no objection to this judge (earlier)”. Ranjit Kumar appeared for Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Kumar Singh on whose public suit the fodder scam came to light nearly two decades ago.
Posting the matter for August 6, the apex court asked the CBI and the petitioner to say whatever they wanted to so that the court would hold the final hearing into the matter on the next date.
There was an indication that the court may transfer the case to another court when the judges said “we will ask the high court or we will nominate the judge”.
Lalu Prasad moved the apex court on July 9 for transfer of the case from a CBI special court in Jharkhand to any other court with competent jurisdiction. IANS
