Patna HC to retry Lalu, Rabri in DA case

Patna: The disproportionate assets case has come to haunt Union Railway Minister Lalu Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi again.

The Patna High Court will now be retrying the case against the couple following an appeal filed by the Bihar government challenging their acquittal.

The two had been acquitted by a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Patna.

Justice RK Dutta had on February 18 reserved the order in the case. The judge admitted it for hearing and called for documents from the special CBI court.

Lalu and Rabri's lawyer Ram Jethmalani had on January 28 described the NDA government's appeal as having arisen "unquestionably out of political vendetta".

However, state counsel Surendra Singh countered the charge. Singh said that the trial court had not relied on evidences produced by the prosecution (CBI) in support of the DA case against the duo.

"Instead, the CBI court seems to have been influenced by the income tax appellate tribunal's order exonerating the couple of the charge of amassing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income," Singh had pleaded.

That order "should not be binding", Singh argued and urged the court to set aside the CBI court's order.

Jethmalani then said, even the informant in the case, CBI Deputy Superintendent of Police RK Kharagwal, on whose statement the FIR was registered on August 18, 1998, had during the course of cross examination said he did not know why his name figured in the investigation and that he was not aware of any facts in the case.

Disputing Jethmalani's claim, Singh said the informant had submitted a confidential report to the then CBI Superintendent of Police VS Kaumudi that had formed the basis for registration of the FIR in the case on August 18, 1998.

Counsels for the CBI and Lalu-Rabri had, during the hearing of the special leave petition filed by the couple in the Supreme Court, contested the Bihar government's right to challenge their acquittal by the trial court.

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Since the CBI, which is a central government agency, had probed the fodder scam cases, the premier investigative agency or the Union government alone and not the state government, was competent to challenge the acquittal, they had argued.

However, the Supreme Court had not given any relief to the couple saying it could hear the SLP only after the state government's appeal was admitted.

Earlier, during the resumed hearing in the Patna High Court on the admission of Bihar government's appeal, its counsel Singh had on January 24 argued that the CBI had grossly erred in calculating the household expense of Lalu and his wife.

The Bihar government had on February 19 last year moved the Patna High Court against the acquittal of Lalu and Rabri in the DA case by CBI judge Muni Lal Paswan on December 18, 2006.

Lalu Yadav has already filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Patna High Court's authority for a re-trial.

Now with the High Court nod for the re-trial, the Supreme Court can give verdict on Lalu's petition.

In the case, that's an off-shoot of the fodder scam, Lalu has been accused of amassing property worth Rs 46 lakh over and above his known source of income.

The case relates to his stint as the chief minister of Bihar between 1990-97. His wife Rabri is accused of abetting him.

(With inputs from PTI)