Lalu son skips Enforcement Directorate summons 4th time

New Delhi: Former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav continued to evade questioning by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as he skipped deposition before the ED on Friday for the fourth consecutive time in a money laundering probe in the railway hotels allotment corruption case. The agency has now summoned him on November 13 for questioning.

“The Central probe agency wants to question Tejashwi in connection with its investigation pertaining to the alleged irregularities committed in awarding tenders for development, maintenance and operation of Railways hotels at Ranchi and Puri to a private firm when his father Lalu Prasad Yadav was the railway minister,” sources said.

The agency registered the case against RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, his family members and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) sometime back. Tejashwi’s mother and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi has already been asked by the ED to appear before it on November 7 for questioning in the case. Tejashwi has been once grilled by the ED for over nine hours in connection with the case, but he later skipped four summonses to appear again. Rabri Devi, too, has skipped the ED summonses at least five times.

In July, the CBI had registered an FIR and conducted multiple searches at the premises of Lalu Prasad and others.

The CBI FIR alleged that Lalu Prasad, during his tenure as the railway minister, handed over the maintenance of two Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hotels to a company in 2004 after receiving a bribe in the form of a prime land in Patna through a ‘benami’ company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of Prem Chand Gupta, a former Union minister. The ED had registered a criminal case against his family members and others under the PMLA, based on the CBI FIR. The CBI also recently recorded the statements of Tejashwi and Lalu Prasad in this case. The ED is investigating the alleged “proceeds of crime” generated by the accused, purportedly through shell companies, according to officials.

Others named in the CBI FIR include Vijay Kochhar, Vinay Kochhar (both directors of Sujata Hotels), Delight Marketing company, now known as Lara Projects, and the then IRCTC managing director P K Goel.