Fodder scam: SC rejects Lalu Yadav's plea for seeking transfer of judge

New Delhi, Aug.13 (ANI):The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Yadav's plea for seeking the transfer of the trial court judge hearing the case against him in the fodder scam in Jharkhand.

A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, which had on July 9 restrained the trial court from passing the judgement in fodder scam case, gave its order on Lalu's plea.

Lalu Prasad had in his petition alleged that trial court judge P K Singh was biased against him as he is a relative of P K Shahi, Education Minister in the Nitish Kumar Government in Bihar, "who is his (Yadav's) biggest political enemy". Yadav had approached the apex court after the Jharkhand High Court had on July 1 dismissed his plea to transfer the case to another special CBI court from that of Special CBI Judge PK Singh.

The case pertains to alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa Treasury in the 1990s. The FIR was lodged by Bihar government in February 1996 but the case was transferred to CBI a month later.

CBI had investigated the scam for a year and the charge sheet was filed in 1997. The charges were framed in 2000 following which the Special CBI court commenced trial against Lalu Prasad and 44 other accused.

RJD's plea had faced stiff opposition from JD-U leader Rajiv Ranjan who submitted that it would be a 'travesty of justice' if the judge is transferred at the far end of the trial.

He submitted that it would give a wrong impression to the entire country if the judge is transferred and raised a question on RJD supremo's petition seeking transfer of the judge who has been hearing the case since 2011. (ANI)

Here is a living example of how politicians delay their trials so that they are not convicted.

This case pertains to the fodder scam which occurred in the 1990s and in 2013, the main accused wants the case to be tried by a new judge so that the whole process will be repeated and it will take another 20 years.

In the mean time, Lalu Yadav's wife was made the Chief Minister of Bihar and Lalu Yadav Yadav had become the Railway Minister.

Our MPs have become shameless.

Gone are the days when Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned accepting responsibility for a railway accident.

Nowadays, ministers loot the telecom department, allow their nephews to loot the railways and yet they stick to their chairs like leeches unless pulled out by the Supreme Court.

Members of Parliament should be purer than Caesar's wife and if they give an excuse of false cases being filed against them, then they are to blamed for making the police a tool to be manipulated as they wish.

It gives one more urgent reason to bring about police reforms so that the party in power cannot misuse the police.

If we accept the Supreme Courts views of declaring convicted/jailed candidates ineligible to fight elections then it would be in their own interest to expedite their cases instead of delaying them.

We the people of India fully support the Supreme Court.