NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday filed its first charge sheet in the ongoing probe into the Railways land-for-jobs scam against RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s wife, former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, their daughter Misa Bharti and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The RJD dubbed it as the “biggest example of vendetta politics”.
The RJD chief’s other daughter Hema Yadav, an alleged “close associate” of the Yadav family Amit Katyal, alleged beneficiary Hridayanand Chaudhary and two firms — A.K. Infosystems Pvt Ltd and A.B. Exports Pvt Ltd and their common director Shariqul Bari — have also been named in the chargesheet, ED sources said.
The ED arrested Katyal in the case in November last year. Yadav was summoned by the agency, but he is yet to depose.
His son and Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, also an accused in the case, has already deposed before the ED once. He has been asked to appear again.
Besides Tejashwi, the ED has already questioned Devi, Bharti and two other daughters of Yadav — Chanda Yadav and Ragini Yadav — in the case.
The over 4,700-page complaint, involving a total of seven accused, has been filed before a special PMLA court in Delhi.
The court has listed the matter to be heard on January 16, sources said, adding that special judge Vishal Gogne directed the central agency to file an e-copy of the charge sheet and documents today itself.
The agency is expected to file supplementary charge sheets in the case.
The alleged scam is related to the period when Yadav was the railway minister in the UPA-1 government.
It is alleged that from 2004 to 2009, several people were appointed to Group "D" positions in various zones of the Indian Railways, for which they transferred their land to the family members of the then railway minister and a linked company named A.K. Infosystems Pvt Ltd as bribes.
In the charge sheet, the central financial probe agency alleged Devi and Hema sold four land parcels "illegally" acquired from appointees in the railways to Meridian Construction India Ltd, a company related to Syed Abu Dojana, who is a former RJD MLA.
The "proceeds of crime" obtained by Devi and Hema were further transferred through a maze of transactions to A.B. Exports Pvt Ltd and Bhagirathi Tubes, respectively, the agency alleged.
"Ms Devi and Hema sold these land parcels for '3.5 crore against the acquisition cost of '7.5 lakh, thus deriving huge gains," the ED claimed earlier.
The agency, in the charge sheet, has requested the court to prosecute the accused for the offence of money laundering and sought confiscation of assets attached by it in this case earlier.
The money laundering case, filed under the criminal sections of the PMLA, was registered after the CBI lodged a complaint.
The CBI has already filed a charge sheet in this case.
Yadav, Devi and Tejashwi were granted bail by a trial court in October last year in the CBI case.
In its charge sheet, the CBI alleged that 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.
Reacting to the ED’s action, RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha called it the “biggest example of vendetta politics".
He accused the BJP of using probe agencies against Opposition parties.
"In states where the BJP is weak, agencies are working on strengthening it. This is a politics of harassment and torture," he said, adding, "The case was registered in 2008, 16 years ago. Did the Railways consider it a scam? No. The CBI closed the case in 2021 on the grounds that no case had been made out of the allegation," he said.
