During the hearing of bail petitions of former chief ministers, Yadav and Jagannatha Mishra before a three-judge Bench headed by Justice M K Mukherjee, Additional Solicitor General C S Vaidyanathan appearing for CBI said without naming Yadav that ``even today one of the accused lodged in the guest house is the de facto chief minister.''

Opposing the bail pleas of the accused, Vaidyanathan said, ``threats were being given to witnesses, both telephonically and personally, not to make statements against politicians in the case.'' Yadav had resigned from the chief ministership in the wake of CBI chargesheeting him in the fodder scam cases and his wife Rabri Devi was elected as the Rashtriya Janata Dal legislative party leader to take over the chiefministership.

Earlier today, the apex court ordered immediate lodging of former Bihar chief ministers Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra in the Beur Central Jail at Patna.

A three-judge Bench headed by Justice M K Mukherjee, while hearing bail pleas of fodder scam accused, expressed serious concern at the privileged treatment being given to the two former chief ministers by lodging them in a guest house in judicial custody while other accused were put up in the central jail.

The Bench directed Inspector General (Prison) of Bihar to take immediate steps to shift Yadav and Mishra from the guest house to the central jail and ``file compliance report by Saturday (tomorrow).'' The Bench also directed the IG ``to take all measures in accordance with IG (Police) for security of Yadav and Mishra while in jail'' and posted the bail applications filed by them and four others for hearing on Monday.

The Bench said ``the disobedience of the order of the special judge, who had ordered on October 28 to lodgethe accused in Beur jail, is coming in the way of exercising our discretion (in matters relating to grant of bail).''

Yadav, Mishra, Chandra Deo Prasad Verma, R K Rana, Vidya Sagar Nishad and Shyam Bihari Sinha had appealed in the Supreme Court against the November 10 order of Patna High Court rejecting their bail pleas.