Gaya (Bihar), Jan 25 (PTI) A court here on Monday awarded life sentence to former RJD MLA Kunti Devi in an eight-year-old murder case.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Sangam Singh held the former MLA guilty of involvement in the murder of Sumirak Yadav, a worker of the JD(U) who was beaten to death on February 26, 2013.

An FIR was lodged in this connection by the brother of the deceased who had alleged that the attackers were Kunti Devi's henchmen and blamed political rivalry for the killing.

Kunti Devi has been a two-term MLA from Atri seat in the district. The seat is at present held by her son Ajay Yadav.

She had first won the seat in 2005 but lost it to the JD(U) five years later. In the 2015, when her party fought the elections in alliance with the JD(U), she was back as the MLA.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on the former MLA and ruled that failure to pay the same would cause her to spend an additional year in jail.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)