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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | CBI men back on fodder dirt trail by Suman K Shrivastava

CBI men back on fodder dirt trail by Suman K Shrivastava

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published Published on Mar 26, 2011   modified Modified on Mar 26, 2011
A Jharkhand High Court whip, issued to the CBI two months back, has put fodder scam cases against former Bihar chief ministers Lalu Prasad and Jagannath Mishra on the fast track.

The CBI, which has been handling as many as 53 fodder scam cases for one and half decades, is now under pressure to complete investigations in the 15 pending cases, of which five involve the two former chief ministers and other high-profile politicians.

As a result, witnesses who were earlier reluctant to turn up, are now beginning to show up, courtesy a rejuvenated CBI. And those that were still resisting are being slapped bailable arrest warrants.

“We have got and executed bailable warrants against four witnesses, retired animal husbandry department (AHD) official K.K. Pandey from Patna, medicine suppliers Hari Narayan and Sohan Lal from Rajasthan and Arvind Kumar of Ranchi. All of them had earlier refused to testify,” pointed out a senior CBI official.

Another key witness, Shiv Balak Chaudhary, has also turned up to testify after several no-shows.

The former AHD director, who later became member of Bihar Public Service Commission, had been staying away from the court citing “lame excuses” and not testifying in the cases involving Lalu, he pointed out.

Of the 53 fodder scam cases, 38 have been disposed of. But those concern animal husbandry officials and suppliers. The remaining cases involve the biggies.

After the January order of the Jharkhand High Court, CBI SP R. C. Chaudhary, who heads the AHD cell, held a series of the meetings with investigating officers and counsels to work out a plan to speed up the cases.

“The CBI office in Ranchi is now rushing its own officers to serve summons, even to places like Mumbai and Bangalore, and secure bailable warrants against those who were refusing to turn up,” explained a senior CBI officer.

The CBI has already served 61 of the 101 summons it received in March. Last month, 39 of 62 summons had been served.

Fodder scam cases have exceptionally high number of witnesses: 804 in RC/47, 287 in RC/68, 269 in RC/64, 458 in RC/20 and 345 in RC/38.

Jharkhand High Court got cracking on the fodder scam cases after a nudge from the Chief Justice of India, S.H. Kapadia, who directed all high courts and district courts to put corruption-related cases on the fast track on December 13, 2010.

The high court then sought a report from the five special courts conducting fodder scam trials. In their reports, the trial courts are understood to have pointed a finger at the CBI for not cooperating and speeding up the probe.

According to the CBI official, the trial in four of five cases involving Lalu and Mishra and half a dozen IAS officials, was hampered as there were common documents in all the five cases which had been exhibited in the special court hearing RC/20.

The Telegraph, 27 March, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110327/jsp/frontpage/story_13771429.jsp


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