M A I N   N E W S

Court admits Laloo’s plea
Validity of arrest warrants challenged
Santosh Jha

Ranchi, May 9
The CBI designated court that had issued the arrest warrant against Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra along with others in connection with a case in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam on Wednesday admitted a petition filed by the lawyers of the two challenging the validity of its verdict and issued notice to the CBI counsel to file a reply. The proceedings remained inconclusive. That has given the much-needed respite to Laloo Yadav facing arrest.

The lawyers of Laloo Yadav and Jagannath Mishra, Mr Janardan Yadav and Rana Pratap, respectively, reached here today to challenge the verdict and they maintained before the designated court of Justice Asim Baran Shekhar that the CBI had kept it in the dark regarding the full bench and monitoring bench verdicts that clearly maintained that the 36 cases, including the current one, are not to be transferred to Jharkhand as the “fountain head of conspiracy” lied in Patna.

In Patna, the Rabri government minister and RJD spokesperson, Mr Shivanand Tiwary, told media persons on Wednesday that the CBI was “using the judiciary” for its “biased ends” and in the current case it had “shown the thumb” to the judiciary by keeping the designated court in the dark about the Patna HC verdicts over the transfer of fodder scam cases.

Lambasting the CBI as a tool in the hands of the Central Government, Mr Tiwary said the CBI Additional Director and the head of the probe, Mr U.N. Biswas and his company “is on a kill Laloo politically campaign in which the Samata leaders George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar are a party.” He maintained that the two scuttled the Dorai commission indictment on Mr Biswas that had considered later calling the army to arrest Laloo Yadav earlier as wrong. The two prevailed upon the Central Government for extending the term of service of Biswas by threatening to withdraw support. He said the Laloo enemies could not defeat him in the polls and that is why they are using the judicial power to kill him politically.

Taking the leafs out of the verdicts of the Patna High Court monitoring Bench and the full Bench that ruled recently that 36 of the fodder scam cases the chargesheets for which have been filed cannot be moved to Jharkhand, Mr Tiwary said at the trial stage, Laloo Yadav had informed the court that the CBI might play foul and try to move the cases to Jharkhand. He added that in the reply the court had assured relief in that event. He maintained that this apprehension had proved right, apparently hinting that it was the time for courts to extend relief.