Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav can now walk out of jail after the Jharkhand High Court on Saturday granted him bail in a fodder scam case related to withdrawal of money from Dumka treasury. This was the last of four fodder scam-related cases where the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader had been convicted and now given a bail.

All the cases were related to withdrawal of money from government treasury by the animal husbandry department of Bihar between 1991 and 1996 when Yadav was the chief minister of the state. Two cases were related to Chaibasa treasury and one to Deoghar treasury. The ground for his bail is completing half the prison term. Yadav was awarded a jail term of seven years in the Dumka treasury case while he got five years each in the two Chaibasa cases and three and a half years in the Deoghar case.

Yadav had been serving the jail term since December 2017. He spent most of his jail term at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Ranchi, for medical treatment. Yadav is in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, for treatment since January this year.

RJD issued an appeal to its supporters to not celebrate the occasion due to the ongoing pandemic situation and urged them to stay in their houses as per the Covid-19 protocol. The party has also requested them not to come to the Patna residence of the Yadav family, saying RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav is not meeting anyone due to the pandemic.