Today, the Supreme Court of India, agreed to hear a plea challenging the Bihar government's decision to prematurely release former MP Anand Mohan.

Mohan who was serving life term in the 1994 murder case of then Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala said it would take up the matter on May 8 after the counsel appearing for Uma Krishnaiah, the widow of slain the officer, sought an urgent hearing.

Anand Mohan was released from the Saharsa jail on April 27 following an amendment in Bihar's prison rules.

"Life imprisonment, when awarded as a substitute for the death penalty, has to be carried out strictly as directed by the court and would be beyond the application of remission," she said in her petition before the Supreme Court.

Earlier, this week, the State legislature issued a notification order for 20 prisoners ordered to be set free including MP Mohan. 

The remission of his sentence followed an April 10 amendment to the Bihar Prison Manual by the Nitish Kumar government whereby the restriction on early release of those involved in the killing of a public servant on duty was done away with.

This, the critics of the state government's decision claim, was done to facilitate the release of Anand Mohan, a Rajput strongman, who could add heft to the grand alliance led by Nitish Kumar in its fight against the BJP. Several others, including politicians, benefited from the amendment to the state prison rules.

Krishnaiah, who hailed from Telangana, was beaten to death by a mob in 1994 when his vehicle tried to overtake the funeral procession of gangster Chhotan Shukla in Muzaffarpur district.

Mr Mohan, who was the sitting MLA from Mahishi, was leading the procession taken out upon the death of his close associate Chhotan Shukla, another dreaded gangster who fell to the bullets of his rivals before realising his political ambitions.

Notably, Mr Suman is widely remembered for his tenure as Patna's Municipal Commissioner. He was indicted for the huge water-logging in the city in 2019, after a few days of heavy rainfall.

The 2004-batch IRS officer was served with a show cause notice well after quitting service and he reacted by alleging that his higher ups, including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar himself, shared the blame for the havoc wrought in the state capital.

Mr Suman is associated with Plurals Party, founded and headed by Pushpam Priya Choudhary, an intriguing figure about whom little is known except that her father was formerly an MLC of Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and she fought the 2020 assembly polls as the "chief ministerial candidate" of her fledgling outfit.