A Delhi court on Monday, September 17, reserved its order on whether to summon RJD chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadav as accused in connection with the 2006 IRCTC hotels maintenance contract scam.
According to a report in The Times of India, special Judge A Bhardwaj said the court needs time to go through documents filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) before taking cognisance of the chargesheet.
The ED had said that it has enough evidence against Lalu Prasad, Rabri, and Tejashwi, along with former minister Premchandra Gupta and his wife Sarla, former IRCTC Managing Director BK Agarwal, Lara Projects and 10 others, including IRCTC's the then-MD PK Goyal. The chargesheet has been filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED had demanded Lalu Prasad to be produced in the court and summons for other accused in the case. However, the order on cognizance of chargesheet was reserved for later on Monday, September 17.
The Patiala House Court had issued a production warrant against RJD president and fodder scam convict Lalu Prasad Yadav for October 6.
A report in News18 stated that the accusations were made on Yadav and IRCTC officials for granting sub-lease right of two railway hotels at Puri and Ranchi to Sujata Hotel Pvt Ltd, owned by Vinay and Vijay Kochhar.
In addition to this, a prime plot of land in Patna was transferred to Delight Marketing Company Pvt Ltd in February 2005 at a very low price. The Delight Marketing Company is owned by the family of PC Gupta, who is an MP from RJD. Assets worth Rs 44 crore have been seized by ED till now in this case.
