'Ailing' out-on-bail Lalu fit to play badminton: CBI to SC

New Delhi, August 25

Stating that former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad was playing badminton after being released on bail in a fodder scam case on medical grounds, the CBI on Friday urged the Supreme Court to cancel his bail.

“He (Lalu Prasad) is playing badminton. He has been granted bail after conviction in the case… The bail has been granted on erroneous assumption that he has spent more than over three years considering that sentences are concurrent and not consecutive,” Additional Solicitor General SV Raju told a Bench led by Justice AS Bopanna.

“I will demonstrate that the (Jharkhand) High Court order is bad in toto,” Raju said even as senior counsel Kapil Sibal, representing the RJD leader, defended the bail order, saying he was a 78-year-old man who has undergone a kidney transplant recently and has already served 42 months in jail.

The Bench, however, deferred the hearing to October 17. Prasad has been convicted in five cases related to the alleged fodder scam with regard to illegal withdrawal money from Dumka, Deoghar, Chaibasa and Doranda treasuries in undivided Bihar. He is currently on bail in three cases on health grounds.