PATNA: Renewed trouble came to haunt RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Friday as the CBI conducted searches in 16 locations in three cities and registered a fresh case against him, wife and former Bihar CM Rabri Devi and two of their daughters in a railway recruitment scandal in which aspirants allegedly gave more than 1 lakh square feet of prime plots in Patna as bribe for jobs. The appointments were allegedly made when Lalu was railway minister between 2004 and 2009.
Like a runaway train, the old case came barrelling down on the ailing septuagenarian barely a month after he got bail in a multi-crore fodder scam case. The CBI said the case was registered against the former railway minister and 15 others, including his wife, former Bihar CM Rabri Devi, two of their daughters and unknown public servants and “individuals”.
Searches were conducted at 16 locations in Delhi, Patna and Gopalganj on Friday for obtaining “pecuniary advantages in the form of transfer of landed property in the name of his family members in lieu of appointment of substitutes in group-D post in different zones of railways”.
CBI sleuths arrived at Rabri Devi’s 10 Circular Road bungalow in Patna at 6.30am and the search went on for around seven hours. Hundreds of RJD workers gathered in front of her home and sat on a dharna after news of the CBI action spread.
Lalu was not in Patna. He has been staying with eldest daughter Misa Bharti, a Rajya Sabha MP, after getting bail from the Jharkhand high court in a fodder scam case related to the Doranda treasury on April 22.
Sources said CBI officials also went to a gaushala (cow shelter) at Danapur in western Patna, Lalu’s native village Phulwaria, his relatives’ homes at Uchkagaon in Gopalganj district, and bungalows in Delhi-NCR linked to his family.
His younger son and leader of opposition in the Bihar assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, is currently in London with wife Rajshri to attend and speak at two events there.
It has been alleged that aspirants were given jobs in return for land when Lalu helmed the ministry. Prime properties in different cities were later taken over by several shell companies linked allegedly to Lalu’s family.
The CBI alleged that job aspirants either sold or gifted their land in Patna to Lalu’s immediate kin, while a private company controlled by the family was involved in transfer of immovable properties in the name of the family members.
“No advertisement or any public notice was issued for such appointment of substitutes in zonal railways, yet the appointees who were residents of Patna were appointed as substitutes in different zonal railways located in Mumbai, Jabalpur, Kolkata, Jaipur and Hajipur,” the CBI statement said.
“About 105,292 square feet of land or immovable properties situated in Patna were acquired by family members of the said minister through five sale deeds and two gift deeds, showing the payment made to the seller in cash in most of the land transfer,” the central agency alleged.
Former Bihar deputy CM and senior BJP functionary Sushil Kumar Modi said most of the land deals related to Lalu’s family were struck between 2004 and 2008. “In fact, RJD‘s Shivanand Tiwari and current JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh, or Lallan Singh, had submitted a memorandum to then PM Manmohan Singh about how Lalu is taking land in return for jobs,” said Modi, a Rajya Sabha member.
Lalu’s family has been on central agencies’ radar for the past several years, with the CBI conducting multiple searches on July 7, 2017. RJD members tried to brazen it out and mocked the CBI as a “parrot”, taking the reference from a Supreme Court observation in 2013 when it upbraided the central agency and called it a “caged parrot” that speaks its master’s voice.
