Ranchi, Aug 21 The Jharkhand High Court on Friday granted eight weeks to the CBI to obtain documents related to fodder scam cases involving RJD chief Lalu Prasad.
Devrshi Mandal, counsel for Prasad, said all the cases related to the fodder scam were listed for hearing before the court.
"During the hearing, the CBI requested time from the court, stating that they do not have the documents. The court then directed the probing agency to obtain all documents from the registry within eight weeks, after which the next hearing date will be fixed," Mandal said.
He said the CBI had approached the Supreme Court seeking enhancement of Prasad’s sentence and cancellation of his bail.
There are five fodder scam cases involving Prasad -- two related to the Chaibasa treasury and one each to the Dumka, Deoghar and Doranda treasuries, Mandal said.
The Supreme Court on July 14 had refused to interfere with the Jharkhand High Court order granting bail to RJD chief Prasad in a fodder scam case.
The top court was hearing CBI's plea challenging a July 2019 order of the high court.
"We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order...," the bench had said.
The CBI had challenged the high court order, saying it had "erroneously" suspended the sentence awarded by the trial court and released the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief on bail in one of the fodder scam cases.
Prasad, a former chief minister of Bihar, was convicted in the case related to the Deoghar treasury, which involved alleged defalcation of Rs 89 lakh.
The special CBI court convicted Prasad and sentenced him to three-and-a-half years in jail.
The high court had suspended the sentence and granted bail to Prasad in the case of alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deoghar treasury on the ground that he had already completed half of the sentence.
