Land-for-jobs: ED summons Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Yadav for questioning

The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav and his father and RJD chief Lalu Prasad for questioning in the railways landforjobs money laundering case probe official sources said on WednesdayWhile Tejashwi 34 has been asked to depose before the federal probe agency at its office in Delhi on December 22 Prasad 75 has been asked to appear next week on December 27 to record their statements under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLAThe ED has once questioned Tejashwi for about eight hours in this case on April 11 but this is the first time it has summoned Prasad for joining the probeThe summons comes following the questioning of an alleged close associate of the Lalu Prasad family Amit Katyal He was arrested by the ED in NovemberThe alleged scam pertains to the period when Prasad was the railway minister in the UPA1 governmentIt is alleged that from 2004 to 2009 several people were appointed to Group D positions in various zones of the Indian Railways and in lieu these people transferred their land to the family members of the then railway minister Prasad and a linked company named A K Infosystems Private LimitedKatyal was the director of this company when it acquired land from candidates on behalf of Lalu Prasad the ED had earlier claimed in a statementThe registered address of the company is D1088 New Friends Colony New Delhi which is the house belonging to Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family members the agency had alleged Several other lands were also acquired by Amit Katyal in the said company in return for giving undue favours by Lalu Prasad Yadav when he was minister of railways the agency saidAfter acquiring the land it said shares of the said company were transferred to the family members of Lalu Prasad in 2014The ED case filed under the criminal sections of the PMLA stems from a complaint lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation CBIPrasad his wife Rabri Devi and Tejashwi have been granted bail by a trial court in October after the CBI filed a charge sheet against them in this caseThe RJD is a constituent party of the INDIA bloc of opposition parties that is planning to take on the BJP in the upcoming general elections of 2024According to the CBI no advertisement or public notice was issued for appointment but some residents of Patna were appointed as substitutes in different zonal railways in Mumbai Jabalpur Kolkata Jaipur and HazipurAs a quid pro quo the candidates directly or through their immediate family members allegedly sold land to Prasads family members at highly discounted rates up to onefourth to onefifth of the prevailing market rates the CBI allegedOver the last few months the ED has recorded the statements of the Rashtriya Janata Dal RJD supremos wife and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi their daughters Misa Bharti RJD MP in Rajya Sabha Chanda Yadav and Ragini Yadav in this caseThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever