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Laloo, Mishra to surrender to CBI court today

Former Bihar chief ministers Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra will surrender along with seven others before the special Central Bureau of Investigation court of S K Lal in Patna today in connection with the fraudulent withdrawal of over Rs 9.5 billion from the Deoghar treasury in 1996.

The surrenders will be in response to the September 25 directive of the Supreme Court, which rejected the bail petitions of Laloo Yadav, Dr Mishra and others, and asked them to appear before the CBI court so that their bail petitions could be decided on a merit basis.

A three judge-bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices M K Mukherjee, S P Kurdurkar and K T Thomas, while asking them to surrender before the court, directed that the special CBI judge should consider their bail petition on merit.

Besides Laloo Yadav and Dr Mishra, the other accused, who had moved petitions before the Supreme Court, were former Union minister Chandradeo Prasad Verma, former Bihar ministers Bhola Ram Toofani and Vidya Sagar Nishad, RJD MLA R K Rana, former animal husbandry regional director S B Sinha and two others.

The special CBI court had, on July 2, taken cognizance of the fourth CBI chargesheet against Laloo Yadav in the fodder scam case 64(a)/96 and directed him to surrender before it on or before July 27.

The CBI court had issued a non-bailable warrant of arrest against Dr Mishra and R K Rana, and directed Verma, Toofani and Nishad to surrender before it within a week.

The court took cognizance of the case on July 2 after Bihar Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari accorded sanction to prosecute Laloo Yadav and others in June.

While Dr Mishra and others moved the Patna high court against the CBI court order seeking anticipatory bail, Laloo Yadav challenged the order directing him to surrender since he had already been released on bail on October 29 last year in the case.

The court had released him on bail as the case did not have the sanction of the state governor for his prosecution. A regular chargesheet was later filed by the CBI after obtaining the governor's permission to prosecute the former chief minister.

The chargesheeted persons then moved the Supreme Court which directed them to surrender on October 28. Their arrest was, however, deferred till October 28 in view of Durga Puja and Diwali festivals.

UNI

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