Rabri Devi, son Tejashwi Yadav get bail in IRCTC scam case

A Delhi court on Saturday granted bail to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadav, and others in an Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) scam case lodged by the CBI.

Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj also granted interim bail till November 19 to Ms Rabri Devi, Mr. Yadav and others in a money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in relation to the alleged scam.

The court also directed Prasad to be produced through video conference on November 19 in the cases filed by the CBI and the ED.

The court granted bail to the mother and son in the CBI case on a personal bond of ₹1 lakh and a surety of a like amount.

However, regular bail was not granted to the accused in the ED case after the agency sought time to file a reply to the bail applications.

The court had granted interim bail to the accused, except Prasad, on August 31 till October 6 in the case filed by the CBI after the agency had sought time to file a reply on Saturday.

The court had summoned and asked Prasad’s family and all others involved to appear before it.

The case is related to alleged irregularities in granting the operational contract of two IRCTC hotels to a private firm.

Prasad did not appear before the court on Friday as he is imprisoned in a Jharkhand jail on another charge.

The CBI, which had filed the charge sheet in the case on April 16, had said there was enough evidence against Prasad, Ms Rabri, Mr. Yadav and others.

The CBI had informed the court that sanction has been procured from the authorities concerned to prosecute Additional Member of the Railway Board B.K. Agarwal, who was then the group general manager of the IRCTC.

Besides Prasad and his family members, former Union Minister Prem Chand Gupta and his wife, Sarla Gupta; Mr. Agarwal; the then managing director of the IRCTC, P.K. Goyal; and the then IRCTC director, Rakesh Saxena; were also named in the charge sheet.

The other names in the charge sheet include the then group general managers of the IRCTC, V.K. Asthana R.K. Goyal; Vijay Kochhar and Vinay Kochhar, both directors of Sujata Hotels and owners of Chanakya Hotel.

Delight Marketing Company, now known as Lara Projects, and Sujata Hotels Private Limited have also been named as accused companies in the charge sheet.

The CBI registered a case in July 2017 and carried out searches at 12 locations in Patna, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar and Gurgaon in connection with the case.

The charges in the case include criminal conspiracy (120-B), cheating (420) under the IPC and corruption, the CBI had said.

The ED had filed a case based on the CBI FIR.