Lalu Yadav’s ‘benami’ property attached

Patna: After carrying out extensive searches to unearth a string of Benami properties owned by RJD chief Lalu Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadav, the income-tax department has now started tightening the noose on his elder son Tej Pratap Yadav.

A multi-storey building worth Rs 3 crore in Patna’s Sheikhpura area which is allegedly owned by a shell company, Fair Grow Holdings Private Limited, was attached by the income-tax department under the provisions of Benami Property Act.

Sources claim that Lalu Yadav’s elder son Tej Pratap and his two sisters — Chanda and Ragini Yadav — were earlier directors of the company.

The action was initiated after several notices regarding the property were ignored by the family. Sources claim that “the income-tax department suspects that the land where the building is constructed is Benami property”.

According to reports, Fair Grow Holdings Private Limited, registered in Kolkata, was set up in the early nineties. The firm was later taken over by people close to the RJD chief when he was the railway minister.

Tej Pratap Yadav and his other siblings, including Tejashwi Yadav, were made directors of the company in 2014.

Sources claim that the income-tax department during extensive probe found that the firm didn’t operate from its registered address: 130/1 Bakul Bagan, Bhawanipore, Kolkata.

“The property has been attached provisionally, further action can only be initiated after the final hearing”, a source told this newspaper.

The name of the company and shady Benami land deals involving Lalu Yadav’s family had come to light for the first time in June 2017 when BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi who was in the opposition then had said that “the Fair Grow holdings limited was the sixth shell company which is registered in Kolkata, but doesn’t exist anymore”.

Lalu Yadav’s two daughters — Ragini and Chanda Yadav — were interrogated in New Delhi last week in connection with their involvement in Benami Land deals.  Summon notices sent to Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav to appear before the I-T officials for questioning were, however, ignored by both the brothers.  

RJD insiders say that “the entire family is busy with Tej Pratap Yadav’s wedding preparations scheduled for May 12”.  

The I-T department had also provisionally attached two plots in Patna last year on suspicion that they were acquired through Benami transactions.

More than a dozen properties worth around `165 crores spread across Delhi and Patna belonging to Lalu Yadav’s family were seized by the income-tax department on September 11, 2017.