PATNA: A special court Thursday sentenced two former chief ministers of the eastern Indian state of Bihar to jail for embezzling millions of dollars in the 1990s with bogus bills for cattle feed.
Former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, a current member of India's Parliament, was sentenced to five years in jail and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine after he was convicted earlier this week of embezzling funds intended to buy food for cattle during his tenure as Bihar's top elected official in the mid-1990s.
Yadav, a former chief minister of the state Bihar and a national railways minister, along with 44 others were found to have defrauded a scheme intended to help farmers with their livestock to the tune of 380 million rupees ($6 million).
Jagannath Mishra, another ex-chief minister of Bihar, was sentenced to four years in jail for his involvement in the scam, said B.M.P. Singh, a prosecution lawyer.
"The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) pleaded for a harsh punishment because it will work as a deterrent against corruption," A.K. Singh, a lawyer for the federal police told AFP by phone after the sentencing.
"Such powerful people hardly get caught on corruption charges. If he did not get a harsh punishment it would send a wrong message to the people," he added.
The 66-year-old, a populist low-caste leader born into a cow herder's family, has always denied wrong-doing and his lawyer said he would appeal against his conviction in the High Court.
His Rashtriya Janata Dal party based in the state of Bihar, one of India's poorest, is an ally of the government which supports the ruling coalition from the outside.
He will be disqualified from parliament in accordance with a Supreme Court order in July that state and national lawmakers should be ejected from office if sentenced to more than three years in jail.
The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attempted to pass an executive order reversing the rule, but withdrew it in the face of internal dissent and widespread criticism.
Rahul Gandhi, the number two in the ruling Congress party, described the executive order as "nonsense" in harsh comments that created a public rift with the prime minister.
Singh read out a list of names of some 44 other bureaucrats and politicians who were also convicted of embezzling more than $150 million of state funds that were meant to buy fodder for cattle belonging to impoverished farmers in the state.
The verdict makes Yadav one of the country's first politicians to face political disqualification under a new Supreme Court order banning convicts from public office.
Yadav has denied the allegations and his family members have said that the 65-year old leader will appeal the verdict in a higher court.
The charismatic Yadav is credited with changing the shape of Indian politics previously dominated by the elite classes by galvanizing low-caste Hindus into a powerful voting bloc.
He served as Bihar's highest elected official from 1990 to 1997, when he was forced to resign amid allegations that he was pocketing funds meant for farmers in the desperately poor state of Bihar. He spent five months in jail that year, while his wife took over as chief minister.
Yadav later served as the federal railway minister in 2004-09. He has maintained he is innocent of the charges, which were filed in 1998. He and his wife, Rabri Devi, were acquitted in a separate case that accused them of accumulating wealth and property beyond their legal incomes.
Yadav's conviction came a day after the government withdrew a controversial executive order exempting legislators from the Supreme Court ban on convicts holding political office.
