The then chief minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and several officials of the state’s Animal Husbandry Department were involved in the scam.
Large-scale financial irregularities in the state’s Animal Husbandry Department first came to light in 1996, though allegations of misappropriation of funds in the department had started surfacing from 1985.
A vast herd of fictitious livestock was created, for which food, medicines and animal husbandry equipment were fictitiously purchased. In the process, funds worth Rs9.4 billion were embezzled from the state exchequer.
- Uttam Sengupta, Consulting Editor
Even before Lalu’s name got entangled in the scam, financial irregularities in Bihar’s Animal Husbandry Department had been reported and these irregularities allegedly involved Congress and Janata Dal ministries in the state as well.
A former Congress CM, Jagannath Mishra, was also being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), but he was later acquitted as nothing incriminating was found against him.
In 1996, a public interest litigation was filed in the Supreme Court of India on this issue. Later, in March 1996, on the Supreme Court’s directives, Patna High Court ordered a CBI inquiry.
More than 500 have so far been accused in the case and convicted by various courts.
The latest among those convicted is former CM Lalu, who was handed a 3.5-year jail sentence by the Special CBI Court on December 23, 2017.
— Sanjib Kumar Das/Senior Pages Editor
