Temporary breather for Lalu as SC reserves judgement

The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment in a petition filed before it by fodder scam accused Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife and co-accused, Rabri Devi, and the Central Bureau of Investigation asking it to overturn a decision of the Patna High Court to admit an appeal by the Government of Bihar against the acquittal of Lalu and wife Rabri Devi by a CBI court in a disproportionate assets case related to the Rs1,000 crore fodder scam.

Lalu Prasad Yadav

Lately, Lalu Prasad has been engaged in substantial histrionics over the Women's Reservation Bill and even threatened to bring a no-confidence motion against the ruling UPA coalition, of which he too is a part. This led to some apprehension in the mind of his counsel, Ram Jethmalani, about the government's stand in this case. He was reassured, however, when CBI counsel A Mariarputham, reiterated his argument that the Centre alone had the authority to decide whether CBI should file an appeal or not.

Bihar government counsel L Nageshwar Rao pleaded that a proper construction of the provision would make it clear that both Centre and state governments had authority to file an appeal. He also pointed out that in this case it was the state which was the victim having been defrauded of over Rs1,000 crore in the fodder scam and it would be difficult to argue that a victim was not entitled to file an appeal in the absence of any challenge to the acquittal of the accused.

The Patna High Court ruled on 20 September 2007 that the Bihar government's appeal against trial court's acquittal was maintainable. Upon this both, Lalu Prasad, then railway minister in the first UPA formation and CBI, as the prosecuting agency, had appealed to the SC asking it to overturn the order as in all CBI investigated cases it was only the Centre which had the authority to decide if an appeal would be filed or not.

Lalu's argument was that the Bihar government's appeal was barred under Section 378(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The CBI supported Lalu's argument.

The current appeal is being heard by a SC bench comprising of chief justice KG Balakrishnan and justices RM Lodha and BS Chauhan.