Delhi Court Orders Money Laundering Charges Against Lalu Yadav, Rabri Devi and Tejashwi

A Delhi court on Thursday directed that money laundering charges be framed against former railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi, their son Tejashwi Yadav and five others in the Enforcement Directorate's case relating to the alleged IRCTC hotel scam.

Special Judge Vishal Gogne, hearing the matter, discharged seven of the sixteen accused and ordered charges against the remaining nine. The court said it would formally frame the charges on October 3.

Reading out the substantive portions of the order, the judge observed that the exacting standard for establishing criminal intent, or mens rea, was not required at this stage. The court, he said, only had to satisfy itself that a strong suspicion existed against the accused.

Charges under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, read with Section 4, are to be framed against Lara Projects, Rabri Devi, Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad, P C Gupta, Sarla Gupta, Vijay Kochhar and Vinay Kochhar. The court found insufficient grounds to proceed against Gaurav Gupta, Nath Mal Kakrania, Rahul Yadav, Vijay Tripathi, Deoki Nandan Tulshyan, Rajiv Kumar Relan and M/s Abhishek Finance Private Limited.

According to the court, the ED's allegations span 2005 to 2014 and indicate that, during Lalu Prasad's tenure as railway minister, a tender for the lease of two railway hotels at Ranchi and Puri was manipulated by railway officials in favour of Sujata Hotels. In return, the court said, the hotel's directors, Vinay Kochhar and Vijay Kochhar, transferred prime land in Patna at undervalued rates to a company called DMCPL, then controlled by Prem Chand Gupta and his wife Sarla Gupta, who were described as close associates of Lalu Prasad.

Shares of that company were later passed to Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav for a nominal sum, the court noted, with the land now held by Lara Projects LLP. It said there was strong suspicion that abuse of office by Lalu Prasad generated proceeds of crime in the hands of his wife and son, who continued to enjoy the use of the Patna land.

The court rejected the defence argument that the complaint was driven by political vendetta, saying the nature, timing and course of the investigation did not support that claim. It also dismissed the contention that the charge sheet lacked evidence, pointing to witnesses and documents that could establish the Patna land sale, the incorporation of DMCPL, a two-crore loan from Abhishek Finance to DMCPL and its repayment, changes in the company's shareholding pattern in 2005, and the eventual transfer of shares to Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav.

Invoking Rabindranath Tagore before pronouncing the order, the judge said the poet's words often provided cohesion in times of uncertainty among the balladeers of freedom, and framed the question before the court as whether all checks on the path of power had indeed been unhinged.

Charges of corruption were already framed against Lalu Prasad and eleven others last October in the CBI's parallel case in the alleged scam.