Fodder scam cases: Supreme Court refuses to revoke Lalu Prasad Yadav’s bail
The Supreme Court on Tuesday (July 14, 2026) refused to revoke the bail granted to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav in the
The Supreme Court on Tuesday (July 14, 2026) refused to revoke the bail granted to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav in the fodder scam cases, observing that it would not be appropriate to interfere with his liberty after six years. However, the court directed the Jharkhand High Court to decide the pending criminal appeals against the suspension of his sentence expeditiously, preferably within six months. A Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh was hearing appeals filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenging the High Court’s orders suspending Mr. Yadav’s sentence and granting him bail following his conviction in the fodder scam cases. “We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order since several years have passed since the impugned order. It will only be appropriate to request the High Court to expedite the appeal and decide it preferably within six months”, the Bench said. Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, appearing for the CBI, contended that the High Court had incorrectly computed the period of imprisonment undergone by Mr. Yadav while granting him bail.
“The calculation by the judge is wrong. He had to undergo sentences consecutively, and therefore the trial court is wrong when it says he has undergone half the sentence,” Mr. Raju submitted. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Mr. Yadav, however, pointed out that Section 427 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which governs the concurrent or consecutive running of sentences, becomes relevant only at the stage of final adjudication and not while considering an application for suspension of sentence. He submitted that the High Court was well within its discretion in suspending the sentence pending the disposal of the appeals. The fodder scam: a recap The Bench agreed with the contention and observed that it was more inclined to ensure an expeditious hearing of the pending appeals rather than revisit the bail order. “We will have to expedite the trial. We may not interfere with the order impugned,” the Bench observed. Sibal responded that he could not come in the way of the court passing such an order. Earlier too, in February, the apex court had indicated that it was not inclined to revoke Mr. Yadav’s bail and would instead expedite the hearing of the pending appeals.
The CBI has challenged the Jharkhand High Court’s orders, including one passed in October 2020, suspending Mr. Yadav’s sentence in the Chaibasa treasury case involving the fraudulent withdrawal of ₹37.62 crore during 1992-93. The principal issue before the apex court is whether Mr. Yadav was entitled to suspension of sentence and bail on the ground that he had completed half of the term of imprisonment. The CBI has contended that the Jharkhand High Court proceeded on an “erroneous assumption” that the sentences imposed in the various fodder scam cases would operate concurrently, rather than consecutively as directed by the trial court. According to the agency, if the sentences are treated as running one after another, Mr. Yadav’s aggregate sentence would be about 14 years. Accordingly, he would not have completed the requisite period of incarceration to seek suspension of sentence. The CBI has further argued that, when bail was granted, Mr. Yadav had undergone only about one year of imprisonment in the case concerned. It has also maintained that the sentences imposed under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act could not be clubbed together for the purpose of determining whether he had completed half of the sentence.
The BriefWire