Delhi court grants bail to Lalu Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, and Rabri Devi

This is the second chargesheet against Lalu and his family in the case wherein Lalu is accused of receiving plots of land as a bribe in return for giving jobs to people when he was the railways minister in the UPA government

A Delhi court Wednesday granted bail to RJD chief Lalu Yadav, his son and Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, and his wife Rabri Devi in the alleged land-for-jobs scam.

On September 22, the Delhi Court of Special Judge Geetanjali Goel had summoned former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav along with 15 others allegedly involved in the land-for-jobs scam.

The court took cognisance of the chargesheet filed in July this year against the 17 accused. This is the second chargesheet against Lalu and his family in the case wherein Lalu is accused of receiving plots of land as a bribe in return for giving jobs to people when he was the railways minister in the UPA government

It is also the first chargesheet in the case to name Tejashwi Yadav as an accused.

Earlier, the CBI received a nod from the Union Home Ministry in the form of four prosecution sanctions against Lalu and three former Indian Railways officials. While the sanction to prosecute was granted earlier, that for the former Railways officials was given only recently.

Officials said they had applied for the sanction last year. Prosecution sanction from the competent authority is a prerequisite for the special court to take cognisance of the chargesheet filed by the agency.

According to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the new chargesheet mentions railway zones which were not mentioned in the earlier chargesheet.

The CBI had booked Lalu and his family members in a fresh case of corruption in May last year. The agency had named as many as 17 people, including Lalu, Tejashwi, Rabri Devi, his daughters Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav, and the beneficiaries of the entire process, as accused in the FIR.

According to the CBI’s first chargesheet, Lalu’s family acquired over 1 lakh sq ft of land in this manner for a meagre Rs 26 lakh when the then circle rate puts the cumulative value of the land at over Rs 4.39 crore.