PATNA: Senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today urged the Supreme Court Collegium to take cognisance of the apex court's "strong observations" against Jharkhand High Court judge Rakesh Ranjan Prasad when considering him for elevation.
The apex court had on Monday made "strong observations" against the Jharkhand HC judge, who had dropped the conspiracy angle in the fodder scam case against RJD chief Lalu Prasad, while setting aside his 2014 order.
Justice Rakesh Ranjan Prasad was appointed a judge of Manipur High Court in February 2016 and was made its Chief Justice in September the same year. If he fails to get elevated to the Supreme Court he will retire on June 30 next, Sushil Modi told reporters.
"The Supreme Court Collegium should take cognisance of comments of the (SC) judges while deciding the case of the judge for appointment to the top court ... There has already been a lot of discussions regarding judicial appointment," he said.
Sushil Modi, who was one of the petitioners in the fodder scam cases in 1996, also cited the apex court assailing CBI for delay in approaching it against the Jharkhand HC judgement and attributed it to "collusion" of the then CBI director Ranjit Sinha with Lalu Prasad for this.
"The impugned orders are palpably illegal, faulty and contrary to basic principles of law," Sushil Modi said quoting comments of the two-member bench of the Supreme Court which yesterday ordered to include conspiracy angle in the probe against Prasad in four cases of fodder scam whose trial has to be completed in nine months.
"Interference had been made at the advanced stage of the case, which was wholly unwarranted and uncalled for. It gave impermissable benefit to the accused person and delayed the case for several years. It is not open to the court to take different view in the same matter with reference to different accused," Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy had commented.
The senior BJP leader also mentioned the strong comments of the SC bench yesterday on role of CBI and blamed the agency's former director Ranjit Sinha, against whom the apex court for has already ordered lodging of FIR in the coal scam.
"It(CBI) has failed to live up to its reputation. Let the (present) director of CBI look into the matter and fix responsibility on a person," he said quoting from judgement.
"Delay in such cases must be termed as deliberate," Sushil Modi added. Sinha, he said, was DIG of CBI when the fodder scam broke wand was influenced by Lalu Prasad. "Due to this Patna High Court had in the past removed him from the probe into fodder scam cases."
Sinha was appointed director general of Railway Protection Force when Lalu Prasad became railways minister in UPA I. "Later Lalu Prasad used his veto on former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to get him appointed as CBI Director," he claimed.
Charging the RJD president of trying to influence proceedings in the fodder scam cases from the beginning, Sushil Modi demanded that the incumbent CBI head constitute a special team for speedy trial of Lalu Prasad which he himself should monitor.
Meanwhile, Shivanand Tiwari, who as a member of JD(U) and one of the petitioners in Patna High Court against Lalu Prasad in the fodder scam but is now close to him, came down heavily on BJP.
"BJP leaders think only they are honest and others are dishonest ... They think if Lalu is finished politics would become clean. If it is so let everybody together hang Lalu to help flow of honesty in the country," Tiwari, whose son Rahul is a RJD MLA, said in a statement.