Ranchi, June 30 : Under sharp criticism for its alleged leniency towards big names involved in the multi-crore fodder scam, the CBI today assured the Jharkhand High Court of speedy trial of railway minister Lalu Prasad and other prominent figures.

CBI director Vijay Shankar appeared before a bench of Jharkhand High Court Chief Justice S J Mukhopadhyaya, monitoring the progress of the trial, and dismissed the allegation levelled against the investigating agency that it was taking more time for the special five cases involving the big names.

The court asked Mr Shankar why the CBI set time frame till 2008-2009 for the trial of the big names, to which he said that it was not possible to set time frame and all cases were equally important for them.

He told the court that all seven CBI special courts for the purpose were not sitting idle and informed that two joint directors were activiely working in this regard, besides his personal perusal of the cases.

He attributed slow progress to some witnesses' staying in far off places as one major reason.

Meanwhile, CBI counsel Rajesh Kumar told UNI that the court did not give any directive to the investigating agency but took note of the director's assurance for speedy trial of the cases.

About 48 cases are pending in various special courts of the CBI following the scam that rocked Bihar more than a decade ago.

Out of these, five cases were regarding the then Bihar Chief Minister and present railway minster Lalu Prasad, former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and many former ministers and senior bureaucrats.

The court recently took serious note of the delay in handling the five cases and asked the CBI director to appear before it and make its stand clear.

The CBI special courts has so far convicted more than 50 people involved in the scam.

UNI