Fodder Scam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fodder Scam is a scam related to Animal Husbandry Department of Government of Bihar in which irregularities of nearly Rs 950 crores (US $ 210 million) were detected.
The scam was unearthed in 1996 during the regime of chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav but it goes back to 1980s and is believed to have started during tenure of Jagannath Mishra[citation needed]. Lalu had ordered probe into these massive irregularities in accounts by constituting a committee[citation needed]. However motives of these people were questioned by a Public Interest Litigation and Supreme Court of India handed over the case to CBI. Many people who were in this probe committee themselves became accused. Charges were filed against Yadav too and later on Mishra was also framed. Developments of the case has been the deciding factors in political situations both at state and national level.
CBI filed 69 different cases related to this scam 31 of which has been in Jharkhand and remaining in Bihar. Political situation of 1996 was the main factor in deciding the fate of the case. The then Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda who was dependent on allies and saw Yadav as his potential threat[citation needed] for the coveted post is said to have connived with CBI Director Joginder Singh who got a free hand in the case and broke established norms to file charges against Yadav[citation needed]. Because of his unfair handling of the case he was given a technical promotion to be shunted from the hot seat by succeeding Prime Minister I K Gujral who too depended on Yadav for support[citation needed]. However the cat had already gone out of the bag and Yadav was soon convicted in record breaking numbers of cases booked under conspiracy angle involving him, his family, bureaucrats and many other politicians.
The charges were framed under sections 420 and 120 (b) of the Indian Penal Code and section 13 (b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. There are a total of 76 accused, of whom three have died and three turned state witnesses.Charges were also framed against former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra, former MP Rajo Singh, former Bihar animal husbandry minister Vidyasagar Nishad, former central minister Chandradeo Prasad Verma, four bureaucrats of the Indian Administrative Service, veterinary doctors and other government officials. There are 20 truckloads of documents in the case[1].
It was only after Special Investigation Team(SIT) under U N Biswas was constituted that investigation started at a brisk rate. Soon many heads started rolling and Yadav and members of his party had to loose their ministerial berths both at centre and state facing corruption charges. Under these pretext began the post-mortem of one of India's greatest financial irregularities after Independence. In the years to follow Fodder Scam became the most talked about topic in state and national level politics involving nearly whole generation for the kind of impact it had on Government and State. In fact because of this case only Lalu Prasad Yadav has the distinction of being the only person ever on whom Lok Sabha debated for whole session as official agenda[citation needed]. The then Member and ex-Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar had severely criticised the move adopted by Lok Sabha and called it unfortunate event.
