New Delhi, July 15 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to cancel the bail granted to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav in fodder scam cases, holding that it would not be appropriate to interfere with his liberty after six years. Instead, the court directed that the pending criminal appeals be expedited and requested the Jharkhand high court to decide them, preferably within six months. A bench of justices MM Sundresh and Prasanna B Varale dismissed the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) challenge to the Jharkhand high court orders suspending Yadav's sentence and granting him bail, observing that the passage of time since the grant of bail weighed against disturbing the arrangement. "We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order since several years have passed since the impugned order," the bench said. It added: "It will only be appropriate to request the high court to expedite the appeal and decide it preferably within six months." During the hearing, additional solicitor general SV Raju, appearing for CBI, argued, "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," Raju submitted. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Yadav, countered that Section 427 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, dealing with concurrent and consecutive running of sentences, would apply only at the stage of final adjudication and not while considering interim suspension of sentence. The bench then indicated that it was more inclined to fast-track the appeals than revisit the bail order. "We will have to expedite the trial. What do you have to say if we expedite the appeal? We may not interfere with the order impugned," it observed. Sibal responded that he would not oppose such a course. "I cannot come in the way of the court if it wishes to pass such an order," he said. The order is in line with the bench's indication during an earlier hearing in February that it was disinclined to cancel Yadav's bail and would instead prioritise the final hearing of the pending appeals. CBI challenged the Jharkhand high court's orders, including one passed in October 2020, suspending Yadav's sentence in the Chaibasa treasury case involving allegedly fraudulent withdrawal of Rs.37.62 crore during 1992-93. The agency has consistently argued that the HC wrongly applied the "half-sentence" principle while granting bail....