Introduction:
In 1985 there was the exposure of the biggest Animal Husbandry Mafia in a press conference by the Bihar Veterinary Association. The fodder scam was the largest corruption scandal involving nearly about Rs 9.4 billion. It was fraudulent reimbursements from the government treasury of Eastern India State of Bihar for fodder, husbandry, and medicines for non-existent life stalk.
A large number of high profile people like then Chief Minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra, doctor Dinesh Prasad Sharma was implicated in the theft and arrested. This fodder scandal was also the cause of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s reign as Chief Minister.
The Fodder Scam
Initially, the fodder scam was on a very small scale by a few government employees. They started submitting false reports of the expense. The magnitude of the expense started increasing gradually and the businessmen and politicians started joining it and finally, it resulted in a full-fledged mafia. In the mid 1970’s the Chief Minister of Bihar, Jagannath Mishra was also accused of having the knowledge of the involvement in the scam.
The controller and Auditor General of India, TN Chaturvedi in February 1985 noticed that there was delay by the Bihar state treasury and departments in submitting the monthly account. He wrote a letter to the then Bihar Chief Minister, Chandrashekhar Singh about the delay and gave a warning to him. This resulted in very minute scrutiny and warnings by Principal Accountant Generals and CAGS to Bihar Government.
The warnings given by them were being ignored by Bureaucratic Officials and Senior Political officials in Bihar Governments. In 1992, the scenario completely changed when a police inspector with the state’s anti-corruption vigilance, Bidhu Bhushan Dvivedi submitted a report regarding fodder scam. He also reported the involvement of high profile people of Chief Ministerial level to the Director-General of the same vigilance unit, G.Narayan. this resulted in the transfer of Dvivedi from vigilance unit to a different branch of administration. He was later suspended from his position. Later on, when a trial of corruption cases relating to the scam was going on in the Jharkhand High Court he was a witness as per the order given by the Jharkhand High Court.
Exposure and Investigation
There was a change in the executive committee of the Bihar Veterinary Association (BVA) in 1990. Dr. Dinneshwar Prasad Sharma became the General Secretary of BVA. The mafia had full control over BVA and scam was at the peak. At the same time, ex-office bearers of BVA, Dr. Dharmendra Sinha, and Dr. Biresh Prasad Sinha started collecting information against the whole illegal practice of mafia. They also exposed to everyone the involvement of high profile politicians of Bihar.
Among the Politician was Sushil Kumar Modi who started the whole scam after it was broken by V.S Dubey. At that time the Chief Minister of Bihar was Lalu Prasad Yadav. During the reign of Lalu Prasad Yadav, the finance commissioner V.S. Dubey came across the financial regularities on a very large scale. State finance secretary V.S.Dubey on January 19, 1996, ordered all the Districts, Districts Magistrates, and Deputy Commissioners to scrutinize minutely all cases of excessive withdrawals. On January 20, 1996, he followed up the scam by asking one of his additional secretaries to enquire about the excessive withdrawal of money by the Animal Husbandry Department from the Ranchi treasury. His additional secretary made the enquiry and reviled that the government’s money was being looted by forged documents.
On January 27, 1996, on direction from Vijai Shankar Dubey, the deputy commissioner of West Singhbhum district, Amit Khare conducted a raid on all the offices of Animal Husbandry department in the town of Chaibasa in the district which was under his authority. The documents were seized by his team and a lager scale scam became public which was well organized by a mafia of businesspeople and officials. The Indian journalist Ravi S. Jha was the first one to break the news of fodder scam. At that time he was working with Asian Age in Calcutta. He also named the Bihar Chief Minister of being involved in the scam. Jha on evidence connected from Chaibase found that not only the then Bihar government machinery was involved in the scam but the earlier government top officials with ministers were looting the government illegally. Jha, and Associate Director of Public Affairs is currently working with the anti-corruption crusader. After the scam was revealed to public Lalu Prasad Yadav ordered the Constitution of a committee to probe the irregularities.
There were demands for transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation which is under Federal rather the State Jurisdiction because it was feared that since state police are accountable to state administration and the probe committee would not vigorously investigate the case. Some of the probe committee members were also involved in the scam. Directions for the involvement of Court were issued by the Supreme Court after Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Supreme Court of India. The Patna High Court in March 1996 ordered to hand over the case to CBI.
Within few days of handing over the case to CBI, the CBI after making inquiry filed a submission to High Court stating that Bihar officials and legislators were not allowing them to access the documents which could reveal the involvement of politicians, government officials and business men’s in the mafia. Few legislators of Bihar legislative council responded to the above by saying that the CBI has misinformed the Court and ask them to take privilege motion to discuss possible action against senior figures in the regional headquarters of the CBI. The regional CBI director, U.N. Biswas, and other officials asked for an apology to legislate council, and privilege motion was dropped. The CBI probe continued.
On investigation, CBI found that the serving Chief Minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav was also involved in the scam. CBI on May 10, 1997, made formal requests to the appointed Governor of Bihar to prosecute Lalu. On the same day, one of the accused Harish Khandelwal, a businessman, who was found dead on a train track. A note was found with him stating that he was being pressurized by CBI to become a witness for the prosecution. The CBI rejected the charge. Lalu Prasad Yadav was also blamed for the scam after the income tax investigation. The Supreme Court on May 8, 2017, ordered separate trials in all the 4 cases registered against Lalu Prasad Yadav in rupees thousand crore scam. The CBI pleaded to Supreme Court challenging that the Jharkhand High Court was dropping the conspiracy charges against Lalu Prasad Yadav. The Supreme Court asked the trial court to complete the trial in 9 months.
Politicians Involved
CBI’s request to the state government to prosecute the Chief Minister turned to deaf ears for a few days. The then Governor, AR Kidwai said that before prosecuting Lalu Prasad Yadav, he wanted strong evidence against Laloo which satisfied him to proceed with his action. As a precautionary measure CBI sorted the governor’s concern. The governor gave permission for Lalu Prasad Yadav and others to be prosecuted on June 17. On the same day, out of five senior Bihar Government officials, four of them were IAS officers that is Mahesh Prasad, Secretary of Science and Technology; K.Arumugam, Labour Secretary; Beck Julius, Secretary of Animal Husbandry Department; Phoolchand Singh, former finance secretary and Ramraj Ram, former director of Animal Husbandry Department were taken into judiciary custody. Lalu Prasad Yadav was expecting to be accused and imprisoned so he filed for anticipatory bail petition. CBI opposed it in the court by listing evidence against Lalu Prasad Yadav. Due to the fear of being exposed in the scam, on June 21 the evidence and documents which would prove essential for them to be exposed were destroyed. Raids were conducted on Lalu Prasad Yadav’s residence and also on some of his suspected relatives involved in illegal activities.
On June 23, charge sheets against Lalu Prasad Yadav and 55 other co-accused were filed by CBI. Some of the co-accused were Chandradeo Prasad Verma, former Union Minister; Jagannath Mishra, former Bihar Chief Minister; two members of Laloo Cabinet, Bhola Ram Toofani and Vidya Sagar Nishad; three Bihar State Assembly Legislatures, RK Rana of Janta Dal, Jagdish Sharma of Congress Party and Dhruv Bhagat of Bhartiya Janata Party; and some current and former IAS officers. Anticipatory bail was granted to Jagannath Mishra by the Bihar state High Court and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s anticipatory bail was rejected by Bihar State High Court. He then appealed to Supreme Court for bail which was denied on July 29 and the Bihar State Police was ordered on the same day to arrest him. He was jailed on July 30. The delay of one day in arresting Laloo was justified by the Bihar Director General of Police by saying that it would prevent the police firing and killing of a large number of people.
Downfall of Lalu Prasad Yadav
After arresting him the other parties demanded removing him from Chief Ministership and also from Janata Dal Party. On July 5, Lalu Prasad Yadav resigned from Janata Dal Party and formed his new party, Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD). He took all the Janata Dal Legislators in Bihar State Assembly and after few days won a vote of confidence in the State Assembly. RJD continued to support the federal government but still, there was a lot of pressure demanding Laloo’s resignation. On July 25 due to demand for resignation Laloo resigned from his position and his wife, Rabri Devi became the New Chief Minister.
On July 28, 1997, the new government of Rabri Devi again won the vote of Confidence in Bihar Legislature by 194-110. This victory was due to the votes from the Congress and Jharkhand Mukti morcha parties along with RJD. Lalu Prasad Yadav claims that he had helped H D Deve Gowda to become Prime Minister and he insisted for Gowade to step down. This lead to the grudge of Gowade against Laloo and also motivated him for Laloo’s prosecution by CBI director, Joginder Singh. The fodder scam declined the political career and it also ended his prospects of being Prime Minister of India in the future.
It was said that Joginder Singh violated norms as he perused Ladoo’s prosecution by keeping the new Prime Minister, I K Gujral in dark. This was done by Joginder Singh because he knew Gujral’s new government depended on Laloo’s support in Parliament. Joginder Singh also said that Gujral tried to Block the scam investigations from proceedings. On June 30, orders were issued by the federal government to promote Joginder Singh from CBI to Home Ministry as a Special Secretary, but actually, it was only to remove him from the investigation. This was followed by the transfer of UN Biswas, the regional CBI Director. The High Court said that such transfers will not be allowed.
Prosecution
As years passed on CBI filled additional cases relating to fraud and criminal conspiracy on illegal withdrawals from the Bihar treasury. It was filed in November 2000 in New Jharkhand High Court in Ranchi and previously filed cases in Patna High Court were also transferred to Ranchi. CBI filed an initial charge sheet of Laloo on April 27, 1996, amounting to Rs.370 million by fraudulent withdrawals from Chaibasa Treasury of Bihar Government.
The charges on which the case was filed on Section 120(B) and 420 of the Indian penal code and section 13(2) of The Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988. Though jailed he was kept in Bihar Military Police Guest House. He was in judicial custody for 125 days and he was released on December 12, 1997, on bail. He was re-arrested on October 28, 1998, on different conspiracy cases related to fodder scam. He was kept in the same guest house but when Supreme Court objected he was shifted to Patna’s Beur jail. Again he was granted bail.
On April 5, 2000, he was again arrested in disproportionate assets. On the same day, his wife, Rabri Devi (Chief Minister) was asked to surrender but she was granted bail immediately. Laloo was prisoned for 11 days and one day’s imprisonment in another fodder scam. Jagannath Mishra was taken into custody on September 16, 1997. He was granted bail on October 13, 1997, and remanded again. He was also in the same guesthouse as Laloo but later shifted to Beur jail. He was granted bail on December 18. Again he was arrested in different Fodder Scam on June 7, 2000. On March 1, 2012, that is after 16 years of CBI handling the case a special CBI court in Patna framed charges against Lalo Prasad Yadav and Jagarnath Mishra along with 32 others. The CBI charge-sheeted them in this case on March 3, 2003.
Convictions
In May 2013, the trial was completed in 44 cases out of 53 cases. Punishment was awarded to more than 500 accused by various courts. Many prominent convicts were involved include that is former Chief Minister of Bihar Lalo Prasad Yadav, Former Member of Legislative Assembly, Dhruv Bhagat, and former Member of Parliament, Rabindra Kumar Rana. On September 30, 2013, the special CBI court in Ranchi convicted Lalo Prasad Yadav and Jagarnath Mishra in the case. With the 42 other people were also convicted.
Sentence
The former Bihar Chief Minister and President of Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lalo Prasad Yadav was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in fodder scam case by Special CBI court on October 3, 2013. Due to security reasons, the quantum of punishment was announced through video conference by the court of Praves Kumar Singh. Lalo Prasad Yadav was also fined of Rs. 2.5 million. He lost his Lok Sabha seat and he can not contest elections for 6 years following the sentence given by Supreme Court. Jagarnath Mishra, former Bihar Chief Minister was sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment. A special CBI court sentenced 16 convicts of fodder scam to 3- 4 years prison terms in case of fraudulent withdrawal of Rs.37 crore from Chaibasa, Animal Husbandry department treasury in the 1990s. Penalties ranging from Rs.25 thousand to 7 lakh were slapped on convicts by court of SN Mishra in connection with the RC 20A/96 case.
Impact
The fodder scam of Bihar was a bureaucratic corruption and criminalization of politics in India. It was a raid carried out by CBI on the offices of the Animal Husbandry Department in Chaibasa 21 years ago. Unearthing Rs.950 crore fodder scam. The fodder scam from time to time was in news for the last 21 years. The other cases which have to be completed against Lalo Prasad Yadav are related to Doranda in Ranchi involving Rs.139.39 crore, Dumka involving Rs.3.31 crore. This was the first kind of case in which loot was made from the department of voiceless creatures.
Judgment
The judgment passed on January 24, 2018, in the third case was 5-year jail term and fine was imposed. So a total jail term in three judgment sentences is thirteen and a half years.
Conclusion
The political consideration and motive was the reason for the investigation and prosecution in the fodder scam. CBI prosecuted a large number of officials including low-level staff which was not involved in the scam. In order to make to case strong against politicians and bureaucrats. It is quite unbelievable that small forgeries and small scale fraudulent transactions would result in such a big scam and unseat a chief minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav.
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