Former Jharkhand Chief Minister who had been granted 21-days provisional bail by the Jharkhand High Court on April 17 surrendered at a court in Ranchi on Friday at the end of the three-week period. Mr Koda had been given provisional bail in a case related to irregularities in allotment of rural electrification work to IVRCL under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana when he was Minister for Power in Jharkhand.
“Madhu Koda had applied for bail for treatment of his mother who is very ill and had been admitted to Apollo Hospital in Ranchi. She has now been shifted to Fortis Hospital in Delhi where she may undergo an angiography and Mr Koda returned from Delhi two days back to surrender to the court at the end of the bail period,” said Mr Koda’s lawyer Vishwajeet Mukherjree.
Mr Koda who was Jharkhand’s Chief Minister as an independent candidate between 2006 and 2008 supported by Congress, Rashtriya Janta Dal, and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is accused in five cases in an alleged Rs 4000-crore scam. He has been in jail since November 2009 after he was arrested following Income Tax Department raids on his premises.
“Mr Koda has been in jail in this particular case since October 2011 and the Central Bureau of Investigation is yet to file a chargesheet. On Binod Sinha (a co-accused)’s appeal, the Supreme Court had asked the CBI to file a chargesheet by end of three months and one and half months have gone by already. We plan to apply for bail again by the end of today,” said Mr Mukherjee.
Besides this case Mr Koda is accused in a case related to laundering money violating Prevention of Money Laundering Act, in a disproportionate assets case related to an alleged bribe taken to recommend a mining lease, in a case of allegedly accepting a bribe for appointment of R K Sinha as Chairman of Jharkhand Pollution Control Board, and use of these funds in Lok Sabha elections in 2009, and violating the Income Tax Act by not filing an income tax return.
