Laloo, Rabri acquitted in graft case

NEW DELHI—India’s Railways Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav has been cleared of amassing unaccounted assets in his former post as chief minister of the impoverished eastern state of Bihar, local media said.
A special court set up by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which announced the verdict in Bihar’s state capital Patna, also acquitted Yadav’s wife in the case.
The couple were accused of investing 100,000 dollars, a sum that could not be accounted for by his reported income, into property, a Press Trust of India agency report said on Monday.
His party, which ruled Bihar for 15 years until losing in provincial polls last November, lauded the acquittal. “Truth has won,” said Shyam Raza, general secretary of Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal party, on Times Now television.
The verdict acame as a relief for the regional party’s ally, the ruling Congress party, still reeling after a federal coal minister was jailed for life two weeks ago for conspiracy to murder.
But the prosecution is likely to mount an appeal and Yadav must still answer to corruption charges related to the siphoning off of public funds.
Yadav was chief minister of Bihar state when 370 million rupees (eight million dollars) was withdrawn from Chaibasa district, allegedly to buy cattle fodder for distribution among the poor.—Agencies