Ranchi, Nov. 12: Former Assembly Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari today turned up before the court of special CBI judge Vireshwar Jha Praveer to testify his statement in a case (RC 64A/96) of fodder scam.

The case involved high profile politicians like railway minister Lalu Prasad, former chief minister of Bihar Jagannath Mishra, parliamentarian R.K. Rana, and renowned politicians of Bihar, including Rajo Sharma, Vidya Sagar Nishad and Jagdish Sharma.

Namdhari remained in the court from 11am to 11.30am and stated before the court that he was the chairman of the Public Enterprises Committee in undivided Bihar in 1996. He also testified that Rajo Singh, an MP then, was also a member of the panel.

Sticking to his statement, Namdhari testified that Singh committed some wrongs by interfering in “Gavya Nirdeshalaya” without his permission.

Though Rajo Singh has died during trial and the deposition was taken non-seriously by many advocates present in the CBI court, special prosecutor of CBI S.R. Das said the deposition of Namdhari would help establish larger conspiracy in the fodder scam case. Around 147 out of over 200 witnesses in the case have deposed before the court. The CBI sources said the agency was planning to eliminate some of the witnesses to speed up and conclude the trial.

The case relates to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 36 crore from Deoghar treasury by the animal husbandry department officials through forged and fake bills.

The chargesheet in the case was delayed as it took quite a long time for the CBI to get sanction to prosecute Singh. Only after the high court’s intervention the Lok Sabha Speaker ruled that offence committed by Singh pertained to the period while he was the member of the Bihar Assembly.