ED summons Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav in land-for-jobs case

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav for questioning in the railways land-for-job money laundering case probe.

The official sources said on Wednesday that Mr Yadav has been asked to depose before the Central probe agency at its office in Delhi on December 22, while the RJD chief has been asked to appear next week on December 27 to record their statements under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The ED has already questioned Mr Yadav once for about eight hours in this case on April 11, but this is the first occasion when Lalu has been asked to join the probe.

The summons comes following the questioning of Amit Katyal, an alleged "close associate" of the Yadav family. He was arrested by the ED in November.

The alleged scam pertains to the period when Lalu was the railway minister in the UPA-1 government. The Central agency has alleged that from 2004 to 2009, several people were appointed to "Group D" positions in various zones of the Indian Railways. In lieu, these beneficiaries transferred their lands to the family members of the then railway minister and a linked company named A.K. Infosystems Private Limited.

Katyal was the director of this company when it acquired land from candidates "on behalf" of Lalu, the ED had earlier claimed in a statement.

"The registered address of the company is D-1088, New Friends Colony, New Delhi, which is the house belonging to Lalu and his family members," the agency had alleged.

"Several other lands were also acquired by Katyal in the said company in return for undue favours by Lalu when he was minister of railways," the agency said.

After acquiring the land, it said, shares of the said company were "transferred" to the family members of the Yadav clan in 2014.

The ED case, filed under the criminal sections of the PMLA, comes after a complaint lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

According to the CBI, no advertisement or public notice was issued for appointment, but some residents of Patna were appointed as substitutes in different zonal railways in Mumbai, Jabalpur, Kolkata, Jaipur and Hajipur.
As a quid pro quo, the candidates, directly or through their immediate family members, allegedly sold land to Prasad's family members at highly discounted rates, up to one-fourth to one-fifth of the prevailing market rates, the CBI alleged.

Over the last few months, the ED has recorded the statements of the RJD supremo's wife and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, their daughters Misa Bharti (RJD MP in Rajya Sabha), Chanda Yadav and Ragini Yadav in this case.