Delhi court shields Lalu Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi, son Tejashwi Yadav in IRCTC scam case; frees them by granting bail

New Delhi, August 31: Delhi court today granted bail to RJD leader Lalu Prasad's wife and Bihar’s former Chief Minister Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadav in an Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) scam case.

 

Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj also issued a production warrant against Prasad in the case. The court granted bail to Rabri and Tejashwi Yadav on a personal bond of one lakh rupees and a surety of like amount. The hearing in the case has been fixed for the sixth of October.

Earlier the court had summoned and asked the Lalu family and others in the case to appear before the court today in the case related to alleged irregularities in granting operational contract of two IRCTC hotels to a private firm. Lalu did not appear before the court today as he is in a Jharkhand jail in another case.

The CBI, which had on April 16 filed the charge sheet in the case, had said there were enough evidence against Lalu, Rabri, Tejashwi and others. The CBI had registered a case in July last year and carried out searches at 12 locations in Patna, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar and Gurgaon in connection with the case.

The former CM and the IRCTC officials have been accused of allegedly misusing their position for granting sub-lease of the rights of two railway hotels at Puri and Ranchi to Ms Sujata Hotel Pvt. Ltd. owned by Vijay and Vinay Kochhar.

In return, 358 decimal of land was transferred to Ms Delight Marketing Company Pvt Ltd (a company owned by family of P C Gupta who is a close associate of Prasad and an MP from RJD) in February 2005 at a rate lesser than the then market value.

The agency has accused that Rabri Devi and her son Tejashwi got a valuable piece of land transferred to their name by way of share purchase at nominal prices. It further said that that the purchase was made using funds of ‘dubious origin’ and had been laundered through several groups of companies.