The Patna high court on Wednesday granted bail to Janata Dal-United legislator Munna Shukla and Shashi Shekhar, another leader of the JD-U, who were last week sentenced to life for the murder of former Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah in 1994.
Official sources in the court said that the court granted bail to Munna Shukla, JD-U MLA from Lalganj and Shashi Shekhar after hearing the petition filed by them.
Munna Shukla and Shashi Shekhar had filed criminal appeals in the court on Tuesday.
On October 3, Patna Additional District and Sessions Judge Ramshreshtra Rai had sentenced Lovely Anand, a former member of Parliament from Vaishali to life imprisonment along with three others including Munna Shukla accused for inciting a mob to lynch Krishnaiah.
The court also sentenced Lovely's husband Anand Mohan Singh, a former MP and JD-U leader and two others accused -- former MLA and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Akhlaq Ahmed and JD-U leader Arun Kumar -- to death for Krishnaiah's murder.
On Tuesday, the court granted bail to Lovely Anand. She was released from Beur jail in Patna on Wednesday. Soon after her release, Lovely Anand charged that she and her husband along with five others were framed by the Nitish Kumar-led government.
RJD leader Akhlaq Ahmad, who was awarded death sentence in the same case, also filed a criminal appeal in the Patna high court against the conviction and sentence by the trial court.
In her appeal, Lovely had urged the high court to set aside the order passed against her by the trial court in Patna on October 3 and pleaded for bail.
