RJD founder Lalu Prasad Yadav was on Monday sentenced to five years imprisonment in connection with the embezzlement of Rs 139.5 crore from the Doranda treasury. He has also been asked to pay Rs 60 lakh as fine.
Lalu was convicted in the Doranda treasury case, the fifth and final case in the Fodder Scam, on February 15 by the special CBI court in Ranchi. Media reports said his legal team has announced it would appeal to the High Court.
The allegations in the Fodder Scam pertain to Lalu's tenure as chief minister of undivided Bihar in the mid-1990s.
He had earlier been sentenced to 14 years in jail in four other Fodder Scam cases. But the Doranda case was the biggest of the five cases.
The Fodder Scam, pegged at Rs 950 crore, was first unearthed by the then Chaibasa deputy commissioner Amit Khare. The animal husbandry department had allegedly issued fake bills for large disbursements from government treasuries in various districts of undivided Bihar. Lalu, then the chief minister, also held the finance portfolio.
In jail since December 2017, Lalu served most of his sentence period at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS). He had been released on bail last year.
