Fodder scam: Supreme Court to hear CBI plea challenging bail to Lalu Yadav on October 17

The Supreme Court will hear on October 17, an application filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the bail granted to former Bihar Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad Yadav in a fodder scam case.

The Bench of Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice M.M. Sundresh on Friday observed that the matter should be heard on a ‘non-miscellaneous day’ and listed the batch of petitions challenging the Jharkhand High Court order for hearing for October 17. 

The top court of the country further turned down the CBI’s request for an earlier date in September. 

Appearing for the national agency, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju contended that the sentences imposed on Yadav should run consecutively and not concurrently.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the RJD chief, apprised the Apex Court that the septuagenarian recently had a kidney transplant and was recuperating at home. 

Sibal said the 75-year-old had already spent 42 months in jail, adding that the agency still wanted him to go back to the prison at this age.

The ASG responded by saying that after being discharged from the hospital, Yadav was playing ‘badminton’.

He further argued that the orders granting bail were bad inasmuch as they had considered the sentences in various cases in which Yadav was convicted to run concurrently and not consecutively. 

Sibal countered that the ASG was saying seven years and seven years, so 14 years before he was heard. This is what their question of law was, he remarked.

To this, the ASG said that this was the law, which has been interpreted by this court. He pointed out that Section 427 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was clear.

The Bench then agreed to hear the CBI’s plea. In a lighter vein, it said that as one lawyer said the other day, either the Court would hear it before G20, or adjourn it for hearing after G20. This would be after the G20 summit, he added.