BJP's leadership in New Delhi chose to recall that issue of judge Paswan's choice for hearing the case had to be arbitrated by Supreme Court. They demanded that the CBI should appeal against the verdict in the high court.

Bihar's deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said he expected the probe agency to file an appeal in the Patna High Court against the acquittal.

He added that the CBI court which acquitted the duo had been mired in controversy on many occasions. Its judge was replaced many times against which the petitioners had to knock the doors of the courts.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar, however, did not give a direct reaction to the acquittal of his bete noire. He only said parties involved in it could react to the development.

CBI, at least its team in Patna, agreed. CBI Special Public Prosecutor L R Ansari said: "It was a well-proven case from our side. We had produced over 130 witnesses."

While Ansari said that the agency may appeal the judgment, the prospects of CBI moving the high court in a case it had so aggressively fought looks dim if recent instances are any indication.

The agency has refrained from filing appeals against the acquittal of UPA leaders like Satish Sharma, and those accused in the JMM bribery case. It took Supreme Court to goad the agency to seek the prosecution of Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati in the Taj Corridor case.

The UPA leadership, for its part, refused to be drawn into the controversy, citing the oftrepeated claim that CBI is an autonomous agency.

Irrespective of what the agency does, Lalu has reasons to celebrate the acquittal in one of the cases which provided fodder for NDA-sponsored campaign against "tainted ministers" and, as his supporters maintain, kept him from fully encashing his political support to regimes at the Centre.

The pro-Lalu camp fervently believes that it was largely because of the cases pending against him that in 1996 he could not realise his prime ministerial aspirations even though he commanded a flock bigger than that of H D Deve Gowda. It is also said that he settled for railway ministry in 2004 because Congress leadership, citing the cases, would not accept his claim for home ministry.

While the cases were used by Lalu's rivals to taunt him, they were also used by his allies to drive tough bargains. Now that he has been cleared, the railway minister is sure to use the judgment as a leverage within UPA. In Delhi, BJP appeared unwilling to absolve Lalu Prasad of corruption charges, saying the RJD chief and his wife "remained guilty" in public eyes.