India's Supreme Court Prioritizes Fodder Scam Appeal Involving Former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav Due to Convicts' Advanced Age

Kathmandu. India's Supreme Court has ordered that the appeal in the high-profile Deoghar fodder scam involving convicts of advanced age be placed on the priority list for hearing. Since the case involving former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav should not be kept pending in court for too long, a date has been set for the final hearing starting from next April.

On Tuesday, the bench of Supreme Court Justices M.M. Sundaresh and N. Kotiswar Singh, while hearing the appeal filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the bail granted to former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav by the Jharkhand High Court, ordered that the case be placed on the priority list.

During the hearing, the Supreme Court stated, 'We know what this special leave petition is, and both parties know the outcome. The convicts in this case are now in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. The files are just sitting idle. We will set a date to conclude this in the month of April.'

The court also directed that cases pertaining to convicts who have passed away during this period be closed. In the case filed by the CBI in Ranchi in December 2017, the court had convicted Lalu Prasad Yadav and sentenced him to seven years in prison on charges of misappropriating 89 lakh Indian Rupees from the Deoghar treasury.

Yadav was the Chief Minister of Bihar during this scam, which occurred between 1991 and 1994. In 2019, the Jharkhand High Court granted Yadav bail and suspended his sentence.

The CBI challenged that order in the Supreme Court in 2020, calling it flawed, and the case has been pending in the Supreme Court for the last four years. The CBI had filed the case claiming Yadav was the 'mastermind' of this entire scam. The final hearing for this case will now take place in the upcoming month of April.