Indian Supreme Court gives bail to former Railway Minister

The Indian Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to the country's former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav currently serving a five-year jail term for his involvement in a fodder scam when he was the Chief Minister of the eastern state of Bihar.

A two-judge bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi gave bail to Yadav after his defense lawyer Ram Jethmalani told the apex court that out of 44 people convicted in the graft case, 37 were already released on bail.

The former Bihar chief minister had moved the Supreme Court after he was denied bail by the High Court in the eastern state of Jharkhand. He was convicted in the fodder scam by a special court of the country's premier probe agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, in September.

Yadav, who heads the regional Rashtriya Janata Dal party which is an ally of the country's ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, has already been expelled from the Indian Parliament and barred from contesting elections for six years, following his conviction.

The fodder scam, which involved embezzlement of huge sums of money from the state exchequer over several years in connivance of some ministers and civil servants of then Bihar government, was unearthed in 1996. Yadav was the chief minister of Bihar at the time.