Lalu Prasad convicted in fodder scam, Dr Jagannath Mishra acquitted

News Network
December 23, 2017

Patna, Dec 23: Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was on Saturday convicted in fodder scam by a special CBI court in Ranchi. The court will announce the sentencing on January 3, 2018.

After the verdict, Lalu was immediately taken into custody.

Special CBI judge Shivapal Singh acquitted former chief minister Jagannath Mishra as well as six others in the case. However, fourteen were found guilty by the court.

The case relates to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 84.5 lakh from Deoghar district treasury.

In October 2013, when he was first convicted in a related fodder scam case, he had to spend two months in jail before he got bail from the Supreme Court.

In this case, Lalu Yadav faces accusations that as the chief minister and finance minister back in the nineties, he kept the file for an inquiry against the mastermind of the scam pending for 16 months and gave three other officials extensions despite objections from bureaucrats.

Lalu was aware of the scam but allowed the loot to continue by his inaction, the CBI had alleged.

The hearing in the case concluded on December 13 and all accused were asked to remain present in court for the judgement.

Earlier, Lalu Prasad was convicted and sentenced to five-year imprisonment in one of the five cases for which he is being tried in the fodder scam.

In 2014, the Jharkhand High Court had given relief to the former Bihar Chief Minister and others by dropping charges of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and prevention of corruption.

The court had quashed the cases on the grounds that a person convicted in one case could not be tried in similar cases based on same witnesses and evidence.

In May 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that Lalu Yadav will have to stand trial in all the fodder scam cases, setting aside the high court order that dropped cases charges against the former Bihar chief minister.

The former chief minister of Bihar had been charged in several cases related to the scam, in which Rs. 900 crore were embezzled from the state exchequer for fictitious medicines and fodder for cattle over a period of 20 years.

The CBI began probing the case in 1996.

Over 50 cases were registered for embezzlement of funds on the pretext of buying fodder for cattle, among others.

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Agencies
June 10,2020

New Delhi, Jun 10: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday brought back over 2,300 kg of polished diamonds and pearls worth Rs 1,350 crore of firms belonging to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi from Hong Kong, officials said.

Out of the 108 consignments that landed at Mumbai, 32 belong to overseas entities "controlled" by Modi while the rest are of Mehul Choksi firms.

Both the businessmen are being probed by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with an over USD 2 billion alleged bank fraud at a PNB branch in Mumbai.

The valuables include polished diamonds, pearls and silver jewellery, and is worth Rs 1,350 crore. 

The ED completed "all legal formalities" with authorities in Hong Kong to bring back these valuables, the agency said.

These will formally seized under the PMLA now, it said.

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Agencies
March 22,2020

Mumbai, Mar 22: The total number of coronavirus positive patients in Maharashtra has risen to 74 with 10 more positive cases reported in the last 24 hours, officials said.

Of the 10 new cases, 6 are in Mumbai and 4 in Pune, they said on Sunday.

Earlier this week, a Covid-19 patient died in Mumbai.

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Agencies
March 8,2020

Mumbai, Mar 8: A day after the Enforcement Directorate registered a money laundering case against Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor and raided his premises, he was taken to the agency's office in Mumbai on Saturday for further questioning.

Kapoor, who was grilled by central agency's officials on Friday night at his Samudra Mahal residence in Mumbai, was shifted to the ED office in the metropolis around 12.30 pm.

ED officials said Kapoor was questioned throughout the night, with some rest time.

A senior ED official connected with the probe told IANS: "Kapoor will be questioned about Yes Bank loans to Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL)."

The official said that during searches a lot of incriminating documents were found and the agency wanted to grill him on his links with DHFL promoters and other companies.

Kapoor's alleged role in the disbursal of loan to a corporate entity and kickbacks reportedly received in his wife's bank account are also under probe.

The ED had filed the money laundering case against Kapoor and raided his residence, apart from issuing a look-out circular so that he does not flee the country.

The ED registered a money laundering case against Kapoor as a continuation of its probe against the DHFL wherein it was allegedly found that Rs 12,500 crore was diverted to 80 shell companies using one lakh fake borrowers. The transactions with these shell companies date back to 2015.

An ED official in New Delhi told IANS that the DHFL probe revealed that funds diverted by the DHFL originated from Yes Bank.

He said that the searches at Kapoor's residence on Friday night were meant to find out any irregularity in grant of loans to the DHFL by the Yes Bank.

The ED has accused Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan of DHFL of purchasing shares in five firms -- Faith Realtors, Marvel Township, Abe Realty, Poseidon Realty, and Random Realtors -- after which they were amalgamated with Sunblink.

The outstanding loans of these five firms, totalling around Rs 2,186 crore till July 2019, were allegedly appropriated onto the books of Sunblink to cover up the diversion of loans acquired from DHFL.

The ED's action comes after the RBI superseded Yes Bank Board for 30 days and appointed an administrator, putting a cap of Rs 50,000 on withdrawals by account holders for a month.

The RBI said that the bank's board was superseded "owing to serious deterioration in the financial position of the bank".

Former SBI CFO Prashant Kumar was appointed as administrator of Yes Bank, which has over 1,000 branches and 1,800-plus ATMs across the country.

On Thursday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the bank was on watch since 2017 and developments relating to it were monitored on a day-to-day basis.

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