Ranchi, Oct. 31: Jharkhand High Court today rejected the bail plea of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, who is serving a five-year sentence in Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Central Jail after being convicted in a fodder case by a CBI special court.

Justice R.R. Prasad, who finished hearing arguments put forth by Lalu’s advocate Surender Singh and CBI consul Mokhtar Khan yesterday, said in a packed court that the investigating agency had been successful in proving the RJD leader’s culpability in fodder case RC 20A/96.

The judge held Lalu guilty of criminal conspiracy in the scam involving illegal withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from the Chaibasa treasury when he was chief minister of undivided Bihar in 1995-96.

The same court had on October 25 granted bail to 20 other convicts, including former MP R.K. Rana, on the ground that they had completed 50 per cent of the sentence handed over to them by the CBI special court of P.K. Singh.

Jagannath Mishra, also a former chief minister of Bihar, was granted provisional bail for two months for medical treatment. Rana, however, has not yet filed his bail bond and is still in Ranchi jail.