NEW DELHI: RJD chief Lalu Prasad and JD(U) leader Jagdish Sharma were on Tuesday disqualified from Lok Sabha after being convicted in fodder scam case. Prasad is serving five years rigorous imprisonment after the special CBI court of Pravas Kumar Singh found him and 44 others guilty in the case.
Yesterday, Rashid Masood was formally disqualified after the Supreme Court struck down a provision that protects a convicted lawmaker from disqualification on the ground of pendency of appeal in higher courts.
Lalu has moved the Jharkhand High Court for bail and staying of the sentence and the Rs 25 lakh fine.
The single bench of Justice R R Prasad has asked for the lower court's records in the case.
Last week, the Attorney General G E Vahanvati had told the Lok Sabha secretariat to immediately issue the notification declaring the seats vacant. He had warned that any delay in issuing notification could mean non-compliance of a Supreme Court order.
The lower court had on September 30 found Lalu and 44 others guilty in the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from the Chaibasa Treasury during the RJD regime in the 1990s and pronounced varying prison sentences against them on October 3.
Eight of the convicts received bail from the CBI court on the day they were convicted.
Lalu was also facing charges in four other fodder scam cases.
Out of 53 cases lodged by the CBI in the Rs 950 crore AHD scam, popularly known as fodder scam, 45 cases ended in convictions by different CBI courts.