Lalu, Rabri cleared in corruption case

PATNA: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi, leader of the Opposition in the Bihar assembly, were acquitted by a special CBI court of the charge of possessing assets disproportionate to their incomes. The ruling, delivered on Monday, ends the couple’s eight-year legal battle.

Lalu Prasad still faces trial in five more cases relating to the Rs900 crore swindle in Bihar’s animal husbandry department, better known as the fodder scandal. The CBI has charged him with conspiring with the swindlers while he was Bihar’s chief minister and finance minister. The trial is underway in various special courts.

The CBI had booked Prasad and his wife on August 19, 1998, while investigating the fodder scandal. Prasad was found in possession of property and assets worth Rs46 lakh, which the CBI contended was beyond his known sources of income. The agency charged him with collecting the assets from bribes paid to him by those involved in the scandal. However, the court acquitted the couple on grounds of inadequate evidence.