Former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav was handed a 3.5 year jail term and a Rs. 5 Lakh penalty in the fodder scam along with 10 others.
The court had convicted Prasad for criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to legal experts, Lalu Prasad would be able to apply for bail immediately at the lower court itself if the quantum of sentence happens to be less than three years.
The court concluded arguments on the quantum of punishment against Lalu Prasad and 10 others in connection with the withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from Deogarh Treasury between 1990 and 1994 when he was the chief minister of Bihar.
Earlier, he was awarded five years imprisonment in 2013 in a case relating to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 33.61 crore from the Chaibasa treasury.
The RJD supremo was later released on bail granted by the Supreme Court.
Yadav faces another three fodder scam cases for illegal withdrawal of Rs 3.97 crore from the Dumka Treasury, Rs 36 crore from the Chaibasa Treasury and Rs 184 crore from the Doranda treasury.
Besides Lalu Prasad, the court heard arguments on the punishment of RJD leader R K Rana, former IAS officers Phoolchand Singh, Mahesh Prasad, former government official Subir Bhattacharya, suppliers/transporters Tripurari Mohan Prasad, Sushil Kumar Sinha, Sunil Kumar Sinha, Raja Ram Joshi, Sanjay Aggarwal and Sunil Gandhi.
The court had heard pre-sentencing arguments in alphabetical order on Thursday of former IAS officer Beck Julius, Gopinath Das, RJD leader Jagdish Sharma, transporter/suppliers Jyoti Kumar Jha and Krishna Kumar Prasad.
It had deferred announcing the punishment against Lalu Prasad and others for the second consecutive day yesterday.
