The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday filed its first chargesheet against former Bihar Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Rabri Devi in a corruption case, reported PTI.
The 4,751-page chargesheet, which also implicates her daughters, Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav, has been filed before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court in Delhi. The court will hear the case on January 16.
Other individuals named in the chargesheet include Amit Katyal, a close aide of the family, who was arrested in November in connection with the case.
Law enforcement agencies have alleged that Devi’s husband, Lalu Prasad Yadav, took land from job aspirants in return for employment with the Indian Railways, contravening the Indian Railways’ existing recruitment procedures. The scam allegedly took place when Yadav was the Union railway minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
The Enforcement Directorate alleged that Devi and Hema Yadav sold four land parcels illegally acquired from appointees in the Railways to Meridian Construction India, a company related to former Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA Syed Abu Dojana. It alleged that the “proceeds of crime” obtained by Devi and Hema Yadav were transferred through a maze of transactions to companies related to the Yadav family, reported PTI.
Lalu Prasad Yadav has been previously summoned by the Enforcement Directorate multiple times. His son, Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, has also been summoned by the central agency and has deposed once, reported PTI.
In March, Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi were questioned in connection with the case by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which filed its own chargesheet in October 2022. The chargesheet named Lalu Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi and 13 others.
In August 2022, the CBI raided the homes of four other Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders.
These raids took place hours before the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance government was to prove its majority in the Bihar Assembly. Two weeks earlier, Kumar had snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party and aligned his Janata Dal (United) with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and its partners to form a new government in the state.
The CBI has alleged that candidates were appointed as substitutes in Group D positions in the Railways within three days of applying in “undue haste”. The appointments were later regularised when the “individuals themselves or their family members transferred their land” to entities linked to Yadav’s family, it has alleged.
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