Sarayu Roy

Jamshedpur, Sept. 30: Former BJP MLA Sarayu Roy, one of the crusaders who had played a pivotal role in bringing the multi-crore fodder scam to light, had a piece of advice for beleaguered Lalu Prasad, who was convicted by the special CBI court in Ranchi today.

He (Lalu) should take lessons from this judgment, instead of considering it as a punishment, said Roy while hailing special CBI judge P.K. Singh’s verdict in one of the fodder scam cases (RC 20A/96).

He added that the order had sent across a strong message. “Lalu is the first prey to the apex court’s recent ruling that disqualified an MP or MLA if convicted by a court for crimes with punishment of two years or more,” the senior BJP leader said.

Notably, Roy, along with JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh, had filed a PIL in Patna High Court in 1996, seeking a probe by Public Accounts Committee into the scam.

Former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi and JD(U) leader Shivanand Tiwary had filed another PIL in this regard.

After the Rs950crore fodder scam was unearthed, also comprising fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.70 crore from Chaibasa treasury in which the RJD chief was convicted today, then chief minister of unified Bihar Lalu had set up an assembly committee to probe the allegations.

But, hearing Roy’s PIL, Patna High Court had on March 11, 1996, directed the CBI to probe all fodder cases.

According to Roy, Lalu would get maximum punishment (read 7 years) as he was the chief minister of Bihar when the scam took place.

If the punishment was for three years or less, Lalu would have got provisional bail. But that didn’t happen, Roy said.

“The scam is unique as accused tried to influence the legislature, judiciary and the CBI. Lalu kept on delaying the case on one or the other pretext,” Roy pointed out.

He added that the RJD chief could also be convicted in the five other cases (four in Jharkhand and one in Bihar). Seventy five per cent of the charges in these five cases are similar to the RC 20A/96.