The Supreme Court declined to interfere with the Jharkhand High Court’s order suspending RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav’s sentence in the Deoghar fodder scam case. It directed the High Court to decide his pending criminal appeal within six months.
The Supreme Court refused to intervene in the Jharkhand High Court’s order that suspended the sentence of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad Yadav in the Deoghar fodder scam case.
The court also urged the High Court to decide Yadav’s pending criminal appeal within six months.
A bench comprising Justices MM Sundresh and PB Varale was hearing the Special Leave Petition filed by the State of Jharkhand challenging a July 12, 2019 order of the Jharkhand High Court.
That order had suspended Yadav’s sentence in the Deoghar treasury fodder scam matter.
The Bench observed,
“Upon hearing the learned counsels, we are not inclined to interfere with the order particularly since seven years have elapsed since then. The appeals are of the year 2018 and therefore it will only be appropriate to request the High Court to expedite the hearing,”
The bench further noted that it would be more appropriate to have the appeal decided within six months.
For the State, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju argued that the High Court had proceeded on an incorrect assumption that Yadav had completed 50% of his sentence. He said two earlier applications seeking suspension of sentence had been rejected, and the third was accepted based on what he described as an erroneous factual premise.
Raju also contended that Section 427 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should apply because Yadav had been convicted in multiple fodder scam cases arising from separate trials. He argued that, unless the court directs otherwise, sentences from later convictions would begin only after the earlier sentence comes to an end.
According to him, the High Court wrongly treated the sentences as concurrent when computing the time already spent in custody.
Raju submitted,
“The very yardstick applied is wrong,”
Justice Sundresh then asked about the status of the appeal pending before the High Court. Raju responded that the appeal had not yet been heard and claimed that the delay was attributable to the accused.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Yadav, opposed the State’s request. He argued that the State was taking an incorrect legal position by relying on Section 427 at the stage of deciding an application for suspension of sentence.
Sibal submitted that the issue of whether sentences would run concurrently or consecutively should arise only at the final stage, and that the High Court had used its discretion to grant suspension based on a consistent standard where an appellant had allegedly served half of the sentence.
Given that the criminal appeal has been pending since 2018, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the suspension order. Instead, it asked the Jharkhand High Court to dispose of the appeal as expeditiously as possible.
In December 2017, Lalu Prasad Yadav was sentenced to a total jail term of seven years after his conviction for offences under Section 120B read with Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 477(A) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as under Section 13(i)(c)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The verdict was delivered by a special CBI court in Ranchi, which found Prasad guilty. The case related to the alleged misappropriation of approximately Rs.89 lakh from the Deoghar Treasury during the period from 1991 to 1994. At the time of the alleged scam, Prasad was the Chief Minister of Bihar.
Later, in July 2019, the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to the former Chief Minister in one of the fodder scam matters in which he had been convicted, and also suspended his sentence.
The Central Bureau of Investigation then moved the Supreme Court. The apex court issued notice on the matter in February 2020.