Former Railways minister and Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was Wednesday granted bail by a Delhi court in connection with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s alleged land-for-jobs case. Lalu’s wife and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi and their daughter RJD MP Misa Bharti were also granted bail by the court in the case related to alleged appointments made in the Railways in return for land parcels gifted or sold to Lalu’s family when he was the minister between 2004 and 2009.In May 2022, the CBI filed a corruption case against Lalu, Rabri, and their daughters Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav, alleging that they accepted plots of land in exchange for jobs during his stint as Union Railways Minister.According to the investigation agency, around 12 people from Patna were appointed to Group D posts in the Railways when Lalu was the Union minister. In lieu of these appointments, the accused received seven plots of land in the city and elsewhere at a very low price. The plots belonged to the families of those 12 people, officials claimed.
The CBI also said that the family of Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) chief “acquired over 1 lakh sq. ft of land for Rs 26 lakh — the circle rate of that time puts the land’s cumulative value at more than Rs 4.39 crore. The agency added that out of the seven land sale deeds, three were executed in favour of Rabri, one was in the name of Misa, one in favour of M/s AK Infosystems — Rabri purchased the majority of shares of this company in 2014 — and two gift deeds in favour of Hema. The FIR regarding the case named a total of 16 people. Apart from Lalu and his family, the 12 people who got jobs in the Railway zones of Mumbai, Jabalpur, Kolkata, Jaipur and Hajipur were also accused. Soon after the CBI filed the corruption case, they raided 16 locations associated with Lalu and his family members. , RJD leaders have denied all the allegations and called the case a “political vendetta of the worst order”.