NEW DELHI: An Indian court sentenced a powerful ally of the ruling Congress party to five years in jail on Thursday for siphoning off state funds, underlining that public disgust with corruption is finally catching up with the nation's politicians.
Arvind Singh, joint secretary of the bar association in the eastern city of Ranchi who was in the court, told Reuters that Lalu Prasad Yadav would serve five years of "rigorous" imprisonment and was fined $40,000.
The sentence means that Yadav will lose his seat in the lower house of parliament, making him the first lawmaker to be hit by a Supreme Court ruling that convicts may not sit in legislatures even during an appeal.
Yadav, a former railways minister, was convicted along with dozens of others earlier this week for his part in a 1990s animal fodder racket in the poverty-plagued eastern state of Bihar in which millions of dollars went missing.
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@ashar: yes yes i am aware.... we expect such people to be heroes of pakistan...no surprise there....... extremism at its best :)
@raj: "...u may be the god of indian railways…" He was proved by his successor to have cooked the books to show how he turned around Indian Railways!
@ashar: yes... hero of pakistan ..
And he has been a hero of so many.
No more caste politics please.......But i am sure he will get chest pain in few days and go to a 5star hospital.........
u may be the god of indian railways.... but u deserve jail for corruption .... good that u will know more be a member of parliament....