The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested a chartered accountant (CA) named Rajesh Agarwal, whose roster of clients includes Misa Bharti, daughter of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad.
This could spell fresh trouble for the former Bihar chief minister, who is already under the scanner of the Income Tax (I-T) Department over amassing benami property — property bought with his money but in the name of a different person from the family or friends. The I-T Department has even conducted raids at 22 places in connection with the multi-crore scam.
Money-laundering charges
Agarwal's arrest comes close on the heels of Bihar BJP veteran Sushil Kumar Modi alleging that Bharti had routed her black money through a shell company to launder it while buying a farmhouse in the Bijwasan area of New Delhi.
He had also said that she had managed to get the peoperty at a price that is much lower than the current market rate. Modi said that though the cost of the farmhouse was closer to Rs 50 crore at the time of its purchase by Bharti in 2008 or 2009, she managed to close the deal for a mere Rs 1.41 crore.
Continued troubles for Lalu
The ED action may have put Lalu in a further spot, amid the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and its leader and current Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar being urged to part ways with him and the RJD. Lalu, it may be remembered, has seen a spate of things going against him recently.
For starters, the Supreme Court has ordered that he face a separate trial in the infamous fodder scam case, after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) approached the apex court to challenge the clean chit the Jharkhand High Court had given Lalu. And then a private news channel exposed how history-sheeter and convicted criminal Md Shahabuddin — who had won the Siwan Lok Sabha seat on an RJD ticket — had been ordering Lalu around despite sitting in jail.
