In the IRCTC case, Lalu Yadav and his family will be charged with money laundering for “abuse of office.”

In relation to purported irregularities in the leasing of two Indian Railroad Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hotels during Lalu Prasad’s tenure as railroads minister, a Delhi court on Thursday ordered the filing of money laundering charges against Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi, and son Tejashwi Yadav.

According to Special Judge Vishal Gogne’s oral observations, there is a “strong suspicion of abuse of office and proceeds of crime” in the hands of Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav, who continue to enjoy tainted land in Patna that was transferred to them at Lalu Prasad Yadav’s request during his tenure as Union Railroads Minister.

Nine individuals, including former Bihar chief ministers Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi and their son Tejashwi Yadav, were charged with money laundering by the court; seven others were found not guilty. Formal charges will be filed on October 3, according to the court.

According to the judge, a tender for the leasing of hotels in Ranchi and Puri was allegedly manipulated by railroad officials when Lalu Prasad was the minister of railroads. The directors of the railroad company gave a piece of land in Patna, Bihar, to Sarla Gupta, a close associate of Lalu, who subsequently gave the shares to Rabri Devi for a meagre sum.

Investigators describe the arrangement as a classic quid pro quo, wherein public contracts were allegedly exchanged for valuable private property, land, and company shares transferred to the Yadav family at throwaway prices. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) claim that Lalu Prasad and IRCTC officials abused their official positions to rig the tender process, granting the sub-lease rights for two railway hotels in Ranchi and Puri to Vijay and Vinay Ko

In addition to naming Rashtriya Janata Dal politician PC Gupta, his wife Sarla Gupta, the company Lara Projects, and ten other people, the Enforcement Directorate filed its initial chargesheet in the case in 2018.

In February 2005, the PC Gupta family’s M/s Delight Marketing Company Pvt. Ltd. received 358 decimal of prime Patna land in exchange for the hotel sublease. The agency also said that Rabri Devi and her son Tejashwi progressively acquired control of this company, which had a valuable plot of land, by buying shares at low prices.

The agency claims that the money used to purchase the land came from questionable sources and was purportedly laundered through 151 group companies connected to P. C. Gupta utilising an NBFC called M/s Abhishek Finance Company Limited. Additionally, the agency pointed out that Rabri Devi utilised dubious monies to purchase these shares.