- The top court was hearing a plea filed by CBI, challenging the bail granted to Lalu Yadav in a treasury scam
- Lalu Yadav was convicted in the scam related to Deoghar treasury, which involved embezzlement of Rs 89 lakh
- "The persons are in their 60s, 70s and 80s. The files are just languishing," said the top court
Pointing to the ages of the accused - who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s - the Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned to April 22 the hearing on a plea filed by the CBI, challenging the bail granted by the Jharkhand High Court to RJD chief Lalu Yadav in a scam related to the Deoghar treasury.
A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh deferred the matter, noting that the pleadings were not complete and some accused have died.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju, appearing for CBI, told the court that the law had been incorrectly applied to suspend the sentence of the accused.
"It's a question of law. It has to be applied. It's in violation of it that the sentence has been suspended. It can't be done. It's an illegal order," Raju said.
Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for Yadav, countered that there are more than one accused in the case and some of the accused are yet to file their replies to the CBI's appeal.
"There are other accused some of them haven't been served, some of them haven't filed replies. There is no need for such excitement," Sibal argued.
At this point, the top court intervened.
"Both of us know what this special leave petition is. We think both of you know what the result is. We all know what the question of law is. You do your job, we do our job. The persons are in their 60s, 70s and 80s," the court observed.
"The files are just languishing. We will give a date in April. Those cases in which the respondent has died, we will close them," the bench said.
The Jharkhand High Court in July last year admitted an appeal by the CBI for increasing the period of sentence given to 77-year-old Yadav, a former chief minister of Bihar.
Yadav was convicted in the scam related to the Deoghar treasury, which involved the embezzlement of Rs 89 lakh from the Treasury between 1991 and 1994. The RJD leader was the chief minister of Bihar when the scam took place. Jharkhand was part of Bihar when the irregularities had taken place.
The special CBI court had convicted Yadav in the case and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for 3.5 years.
In July 2019, the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to the former Bihar Chief Minister in one of the fodder scam cases he has been convicted in, while also suspending the sentence.
The CBI moved an appeal against the order, stating that Yadav was overall in charge of the animal husbandry department at that time.
Investigation had revealed that he was aware of the embezzlement in the Deoghar treasury. However, the lower court only awarded a sentence of 3.5 years for the offence, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years, CBI said.
