Fresh ED summons to Tejashwi in land-for-jobs case, asked to appear on Jan 5

The ED has issued a summons to Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav in the railway land-for-jobs scam case.

New Delhi:The Enforcement Directorate has issued a fresh summons to Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in the railway land-for-jobs scam case, asking him to appear on January 5, official sources said Saturday. He was earlier called to appear on December 22 but the 34-year-old skipped the summons. He had called the ED notice a routine affair.

In the same case, his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has been asked to depose on December 27 at the ED headquarters in Delhi. The alleged scam pertains to the period when Prasad was the railway minister in the UPA-1 government. "There is nothing new in the summons. All these agencies -- ED, CBI and I-T department -- have summoned me so many times in the past and I have duly appeared every time. But now it seems to have become routine," the RJD leader told reporters on December 21 in Patna.

He was one questioned by the ED in this case on April 11. It is understood that the summons come following the questioning of an alleged "close associate" of the Lalu Prasad family, Amit Katyal. He was arrested by the ED in November. It is alleged that from 2004 to 2009, several people were appointed to Group "D" positions in various zones of the Indian Railways in return for land they transferred to the family members of Prasad, the then railway minister, and a linked company named A K Infosystems Private Limited.

Katyal was the director of this company when it acquired land from candidates "on behalf" of Lalu Prasad, the ED had earlier claimed in a statement. "The registered address of the company is D-1088, 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 said. After acquiring the land, it said, shares of the said company were "transferred" to the family members of Lalu Prasad in 2014.

The ED case, filed under the criminal sections of the PMLA, stems from a complaint lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav were granted bail by a trial court in October after the CBI filed a chargesheet against them in this case. The RJD is one of the INDIA bloc of parties that have joined hands to take on the BJP in the general elections of 2024.

According 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 Hazipur. As a quid pro quo, the candidates, directly or through their immediate family members, allegedly sold land to Prasad's family members at highly discounted rates, up to one-fourth to one-fifth of the prevailing market rates, the CBI alleged.

Over the last few months, the ED has recorded the statements of Rabri Devi, her daughters Misa Bharti (RJD MP in Rajya Sabha), Chanda Yadav and Ragini Yadav in this case. (PTI)