Lalu Prasad

New Delhi, July 23: The RJD chief, Lalu Prasad, today received a shot in the arm with the Supreme Court virtually agreeing to his plea for change of the CBI judge dealing with the fodder scam.

The bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it would either direct the high court to appoint a new judge or would itself do so if there was no consensus among the parties on the name of the judge to replace the controversial special CBI judge, P.K. Singh. The court asked the counsel of Lalu, CBI and JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan, on whose plea the high court is monitoring the scam, to evolve a consensus on the name of the judge and posted the case for hearing on August 6.

Ironically, the CBI, which on July 9 was directed by the apex court to file its response on Lalu’s plea for transfer of the judge, today failed to appear before the court. Thus its stance is not known as to whether it was supporting the cause of Lalu whom it is prosecuting or opposing it.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Lalu alleging that the judge was biased against him, as he was a relative of education minister P.K. Shahi.

Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Ranjan, opposed Lalu’s plea and contended that the judge had been hearing the case since 2011 and the RJD chief did not raise objection in 275 days of hearing that took place since then. The bench, however, was of the view that it would be better to change the judge in view of the allegation levelled against him.