Delhi's Patiala Court which was hearing the case related to the IRCTC scam, adjourned the matter to December 20 on Monday. Special judge Arun Bharadwaj passed the directions after he was told that the accused could not appear before the court, as per earlier direction, owing to his ill health. The court directed the CBI and ED to ensure Lalu’s presence from video conference from the hospital, if he is still lodged there, or from jail.
Lalu is currently lodged in a Jharkhand jail.
His son and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadv were granted bail last month. The Patiala Court granted bail to Rabri and Tejashwi Yadav in the CBI case on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of a like amount.
However, the 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 earlier granted interim bail to the accused, except Prasad, on August 31 till today in the case filed by the CBI after the agency had sought time to file a reply on Saturday.
Earlier, 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.
The CBI, which had on April 16 filed the charge sheet in the case, had said there was enough evidence against Prasad, Rabri, Tejashwi and others.
Earlier, the CBI had informed the court that sanction has been procured from authorities concerned to prosecute Additional Member of Railway Board B K Agarwal, who was then the group general manager of the IRCTC.
Besides Lalu Prasad, and his family members, former Union minister Prem Chand Gupta and his wife Sarla Gupta and Agarwal, then managing director of IRCTC P K Goyal and then IRCTC director Rakesh Saxena were also named in the charge sheet.
The other names in the charge sheet include then group general managers of IRCTC V K Asthana and R K Goyal, and Vijay Kochhar, 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 had registered a case in July last year 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 IPC and corruption, the central probe agency had said.
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