Lalu Prasad jailed for graft

A special court in India today handed down a three and a half years of imprisonment to senior opposition politician Lalu Prasad Yadav, head of Rashtriya Janata Dal, in connection with a case filed for embezzling Rs 950 crore.

The court in Ranchi town of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand handed down the punishment in the third fodder scam case. All the 15 convicts, including Yadav, appeared before the court from a prison via video conferencing, our New Delhi correspondent reports.

There are six cases related to the fodder scam which are being investigated. Today’s hearing on the quantum of sentence pertains to the fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from a government treasury when Yadav was the Chief Minister of Bihar between 1991 and 1994.

Yadav was convicted by the court in Ranchi in the second fodder scam case on December 23, 2017, and has been lodged in a jail since then.

In the first fodder scam case, Lalu was sentenced to five years in jail, a conviction which led to his disqualification from contesting elections for 11 years.