Patna: Former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi on Tuesday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate, which has also summoned her husband and RJD president Lalu Prasad and their son Tej Pratap Yadav for questioning in the land-for-jobs money laundering case, official sources said.
Devi reached the ED office on Bank Road here along with her MP daughter Misa Bharti.
Tej Pratap Yadav too was asked to appear on Tuesday. However, it is not clear if the MLA will appear before the agency as the Bihar Assembly is in session, the sources said.
Tej Pratap Yadav, 36, too appeared before the investigators.
Prasad, 76, has been asked to depose before the federal probe agency in Patna on Wednesday, the sources said.
They suggested that the fresh round of questioning was necessitated due to some “additional facts” emerging in the case.
The statements of the three are to be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they added.
“It is now obvious that the BJP unleashes central agencies on its opponents whenever it has to face an election in a state. We saw it in Jharkhand and Delhi. Now it is being seen in Bihar,” RJD spokesman Ejaz Ahmed said.
Prasad, Rabri Devi and their younger son Tejashwi Yadav have been questioned by the ED in this case earlier.
Last year, the ED filed a chargesheet in the case against Prasad’s family members before a Delhi court, naming Rabri Devi and their daughters Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav as accused apart from some others.
The probe pertains to the allegation that Prasad, during his tenure as the railway minister in the UPA-1 government at the Centre, indulged in corruption for the appointment of group D substitutes in Indian Railways during 2004-2009.
According to a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR, the candidates were told to “transfer land as a bribe” in return for jobs in the railways, the ED said in a statement earlier. The money laundering case is based on the CBI complaint.
“The family members of Lalu Prasad — Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav — who were made accused in the ED chargesheet, received land parcel(s) from the family of candidates (who were selected as group D substitutes in Indian Railways) for nominal amounts.
“Hridyanand Chaudhary, another accused named in the chargesheet, is a former employee in the gaushala of Rabri Devi who had acquired property from one of the candidates and later transferred the same to Hema Yadav,” the ED has said.
Firms like A K Infosystems Private Limited and A B Exports Pvt. Ltd. were “shell” companies that received proceeds of crime for Prasad’s family members, the agency said, adding that immovable properties were acquired in the name of the said companies by “front men”.
Later, the ED claimed, shares were transferred to Prasad’s family members for nominal amounts.
