In a surprising development (since judiciary has recently acquitted politicians in the 2G scam and Adarsh scam), a CBI court today found RJD leader and former Chief Minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav guilty in the fodder scam:
Ranchi’s Special CBI Court pronounces verdict, Lalu Prasad Yadav found guilty in #FodderScamVerdictpic.twitter.com/vI8SqKzeuy
— ANI (@ANI) December 23, 2017
Lalu specifically was convicted in a Rs 89 lakh Deogarh treasury case, which is one of the five fodder scam cases in which Lalu is an accused. It was alleged that fraudulent withdraws were made from the Deogarh treasury 1991 and 1993. Lalu’s quantum of punishment in this matter will be announced on 3rd January.
But this conviction episode wasn’t without high drama.
A few minutes before the actual conviction, the media, possibly by tapping into their telepathic instincts, jumped the gun to give Lalu supporters a reason to cheer:
Even AAP propaganda blog decided to acquit Lalu and even wrote an article on it:
A journalist who was criticised for her soft ball Rahul Gandhi interview, too touted the acquittal line:
Many common users too reacted to the misreporting:
Breaking: Lalu Prasad acquitted. What a disappointment!
Lalu Yadav had a faith on Indian judiciary not without a reason.
— Sudhanshu S. Singh (@sssingh21) December 23, 2017
Lalu Yadav acquitted. Faith in money restored. #FodderScam
— IMRAN KHAN (@imranmkkhan) December 23, 2017
Some media houses though soon tried to calm everyone down, by asserting that a judgement wasn’t yet passed in Lalu’s case and the whole “acquitted” proclamation was fake news.
As per the Managing Editor of ABP news, the media was fooled into carrying such reports after it mistook IPS Natranjan’s acquittal as Lalu’s:
Few channels run the news of @laluprasadrjd not guilty in fodder scam. Court had announced acquittal of IPS Natrajan , no order on Lalu yet. pic.twitter.com/HU6BrWuYpT
— milind khandekar (@milindkhandekar) December 23, 2017
After jumping head over heels to announce that Lalu was acquitted, Times Now possibly also decided to rapidly issue a correction, but managed to make a grammatical error there:
People were predictably amused by this whole episode and reacted:
Times now first said…
Lalu acquitted
Then
Someone acquitted
Then
Jagannath Mishra Held Guilty
Then
No, Jagannath Mishra acquitted
Then
Verdict on Lalu to come on Jan-3
Then
Lalu Convicted, quantum of punishment to be announced on Jan 3rd.#LaluVerdict— Mihir Jha ✍️ (@MihirkJha) December 23, 2017
Well, Lalu Prasad is Convicted but as some of our Media announced before #FodderScam Verdict that Lalu is acquitted. So this is Moral victory of Lalu. pic.twitter.com/eW6W7u8xIW
— Anshul Saxena (@AskAnshul) December 23, 2017
HAHAHAHA. Some lawyers just ran out the Court, shouting that Laloo has been acquitted. Without checking, ALL the news channels announced the news, only to retract it in two minutes, after realizing that they were pranked by these lawyers!
— Vaibhav Vishal (@ofnosurnamefame) December 23, 2017
During the triple talaq verdict too the media had prematurely announced that the Supreme Court had upheld triple talaq, simply after listening to the Chief Justice of India’s opinion over the matter, and concluding that his will have the final say. Earlier, even former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalithaa was pronounced acquitted by some channel when she had actually been convicted.
