New Delhi: In further trouble for RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday raided farmhouses owned by his daughter, Rajya Sabha MP Misa Bharti, in Delhi in connection with a money laundering case.
Sleuths of the central probe agency swooped on the farmhouses in Ghitorni, Bijwasan and Sainik Farms areas.
The farmhouses are linked to Bharti, her husband Shailesh Kumar and M/s Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited. Two more premises are under the scanner of the agency and can be searched later, PTI quoted an ED official as saying.
Sources in the ED told CNN-News18 that Misa and husband may also be called in for questioning later. Investigators are currently verifying the documents with the couple at their farmhouse.
The searches are connected to a money laundering probe being conducted by the agency against two brothers, Surendra Kumar Jain and Virendra Jain, and others who are alleged to have laundered several crore rupees using shell companies.
The Jain brothers were arrested by the ED under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
One of the firms that the arrested duo dealt with was M/s Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited. Bharti and her husband are alleged to have been directors of this firm in the past.
The agency said it was detected that 1,20,000 shares of M/s Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited were bought during 2007-08 at a rate of Rs 100 per share by four shell companies — M/s Shalini Holdings Limited, M/s Ad-Fin Capital Services (India) Pvt. Ltd, M/s Mani Mala Delhi Properties Pvt. Ltd., and M/s Diamond Vinimay Pvt. Ltd. These 1,20,000 shares, it said, were bought back by Bharti at Rs 10 per share.
The searches came a day after the CBI registered a case against Lalu, his wife Rabri Devi and son Tejaswi Yadav over alleged irregularities in the awarding of an IRCTC contract in 2006 when Lalu was the railway minister.
Lalu has been accused of influencing the tender process and accepting three acres of lands in return, which was then allegedly routed to Rabri and Tejaswi, now the deputy CM of Bihar, via a shell company.
Misa and her husband Shailesh Kumar too have been accused of laundering money via shell companies. The I-T department had last month attached over 12 properties of her husband, brothers Tejaswi and Tej Pratap, and others under the Benami Transactions Act, 1988.
On May 16, searches were conducted at 22 places in and around Delhi in connection with the alleged benami property deals.
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