New Delhi: The Supreme Court today granted bail to a multi-crore fodder scam convict who was sentenced to three years imprisonment by a trial court in Jharkhand.

Brajesh Kumar Sinha, a medicine supplier who was held guilty of cheating and forgery, was granted bail by a bench comprising Justices A K Mathur and Markandey Katju which considered his submission that he had already undergone imprisonment for one year.

Sinha's counsel Brajesh Kumar said that the bench should consider his bail plea as even the designated CBI court in Ranchi while convicting him had taken a lenient view that the accused was only 19 year-old and had acted under the guidance of his elder family members who were directly associated with the business.

The Bench accepted the submission of Kumar and directed the convict to furnish a personal bail bond of Rs 10,000 and a surety of equal amount. Several cases of the multi-crore fodder scam - which was reported before the division of Bihar into two states - have been tried in Jharkhand courts.

The accused was convicted for deficient supply and not for non-supply, a lesser offence, his counsel said.

He was the partner of the firm named Tara Pharmaceuticals which allegedly did not supply the entire quantity of veterinary medicine for which an order was placed by the government. Despite the short-supply, he allegedly received payment for the full order.

He was accused of defrauding the Animal Husbandry Department on the basis of fake and fraudulent documents during the period from September 1994 to October 1995.

Source : PTI