The Supreme Court has rejected Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's plea for transferring the judge hearing the fodder scam.
The top court has directed the judge to give 15 more days for further arguments in the case and then deliver the judgement at the earliest.
Mr Yadav allegedly embezzled Rs 35 crore when he was Bihar chief minister.
The RJD chief had moved the top court, expressing fear that he won't get a fair trial as the Ranchi court judge handling the case, Pravas Kumar Singh, is related to a senior minister in the present Bihar government headed by his political rival, Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United).
The Supreme Court had, in response, restrained the trial court from giving a verdict in the fodder scam case earlier this month.
The RJD chief had approached the Supreme Court after the Jharkhand High Court had dismissed his appeal for a transfer.
Mr Yadav was named as an accused in five fodder scam cases in 1997, along with nearly 40 others. In this case he is accused of withdrawing Rs. 35 crore illegally from the Chaibasa treasury. Chaibasa is now in Jharkhand.
54 of the 61 cases related to the scandal were transferred to Jharkhand courts after it was carved out from Bihar and made a separate state in November 2000.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to raise a storm in Parliament on Tuesday over a report that links Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra to "sham deals" in Haryana, a day after the Congress's own MP called for an inquiry into illicit land deals in the state.
The main Opposition party has given notice in both houses of Parliament to discuss the alleged land deals, undeterred by the government's arguments that it is a state subject and involves a person who is not a Member of Parliament.
"The controversy involves banking issues, so Finance Minister P Chidambaram can respond," a senior BJP leader told NDTV. On Monday, the Rajya Sabha chairperson rejected the BJP's notice for discussion as it mentioned Sonia Gandhi, who is a member of the other House.
As a determined BJP vowed to corner the government again today, Congress sources said the party had asked Randeep Singh Surjewala, the Urban Development minister in the party-ruled Haryana government, to respond to the charges.
The Congress has been facing an opposition onslaught ever since senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka alleged in a report that Robert Vadra had "falsified documents" to execute a series of "sham transactions" for the sale of 3.5 acres of land in Gurgaon to real estate giant DLF for Rs. 58 crore.
Mr Vadra has been married to Mrs Gandhi's daughter, Priyanka, since 1997.
Mr Khemka - who was controversially transferred by the Haryana government in October last year, three days after he cancelled the mutation of Mr Vadra's deal with DLF - handed the 100-page report to the state government in May this year, details of which have become public now.
On Monday, Rao Inderjit Singh, a Congress MP from Gurgaon, had called for a detailed inquiry to "substantiate or refute" the charges against Mr Vadra, saying it should be part of a larger investigation into alleged irregular practices in the government's appropriation and sale of nearly 1200 acres.
The Haryana government has repeatedly said that Mr Vadra received no preferential treatment.
Ishrat case: allow me ambulance to go to court, says cop PP Pandey
PP Pandey, the Gujarat police officer accused of murdering college student Ishrat Jahan, is in hospital but has asked doctors to send him in an ambulance if necessary to appear in a court in Ahmedabad.Mr Pandey was hospitalised yesterday after he complained of chest pain.
Mr Pandey had been ordered by the Supreme Court today to appear in a city court today.
After going missing for nearly two months since he was named an accused in the Ishrat case, he showed up at work for a few hours on Sunday.
He was a senior Crime Branch officer in Ahmedabad when the 19-year-old was shot dead with three men on the outskirts of the city in 2004.
In its first chargesheet filed last month, the CBI listed Mr Pandey as one of seven policemen who allegedly murdered her in what it described as a "staged encounter" committed "in cold blood."
The policemen have said in their defence that they had been warned by the state's Intelligence Bureau that Ishrat and her companions were planning to assassinate chief minister Narendra Modi on behalf of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Last week, the CBI said that it will expand its inquiry to determine whether that is true. In its first chargesheet, it did not comment on the alleged terror links of the group, provoking fierce criticism from the BJP. The party said that the government is pressuring the CBI to suppress crucial information to undermine the administration of Mr Modi, who is widely seen as the front-runner for the BJP's prime ministerial nomination.
