Source – freepressjournal.in
Ranchi: A special CBI court has allowed Lalu Prasad to meet his counsel thrice a week as his case pertaining to fodder scam is in the stage of defence, the RJD chief’s advocate Prabhat Kumar said on Friday.
The advocate said he had met his client at the paying ward of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday accordingly.
“The CBI court has allowed our petition requesting to have meetings three days a week following day-to-day arguments. The court allowed us to meet between 4 pm and 5 pm after informing the jail authorities,” Kumar told PTI.
Prasad had on January 16 appeared before the special CBI court in connection with RC/47 case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 139.35 crore from Doranda Treasury during his chief ministerial regime in Bihar in the 1990s.
This is the fifth and last fodder scam case against Prasad in Ranchi while he has the sixth and final case in Bhagalpur in connection with the Animal Husbandry scam, popularly known as fodder scam.
He has been convicted in the previous four fodder scam cases, getting prison sentences ranging between three and a half years and fourteen years by different special CBI courts.
The Doranda Treasury case has 575 witnesses and 111 accused, a CBI official said, adding initially the investigating agency filed the charge sheet against 170 people.
Prasad, who has been in jail since December 2017, is undergoing treatment for multiple diseases at the RIMS.