CBI set to grill Rabri over rail hotel scam
The CBI is now tightening its grip around former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi over its probe into the IRCTC hotel scam. It is reliably learnt that the CBI is preparing to issue summons to her for seeking certain clarifications in connection with the case.
The probe agency has already questioned RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his son Tejashwi Yadav over the case. “After scrutinising the statements given by Lalu and Tejashwi, the CBI is now planning to question Rabri Devi in connection with the case. We will soon issue her summons for questioning”, a CBI source said. In July, CBI sleuths had searched the premises of Lalu Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi after filing an FIR against the couple, Tejashwi Yadav and five others in a 2006 case of the IRCTC transferring two railway hotels, one each in Ranchi and Puri, to Sujata Hotel Pvt Ltd, in an alleged violation of tender norms during Lalu Yadav’s tenure as railway minister.
According to the CBI FIR, the owners of Sujata Hotel Pvt Ltd had, a year before being given charge of the two railway hotels, allegedly transferred a prime threeacre plot along Patna’s Bailey Road to Delight
Marketing Pvt Ltd, a company owned by RJD leader P. C. Gupta’s wife.
The control of Delight Marketing was, in turn, shifted to Tejashwi Yadav and Rabri Devi and the company was renamed Lara Projects LLP, the CBI claimed. Others named in the FIR include Vijay Kochhar and Vinay Kochhar, directors of Sujata Hotel Pvt Ltd; Sarla Gupta, director of Delight Marketing Pvt Ltd, and P. K. Goel, the then managing director of Central IRCTC. by
“Investigation has revealed probe agencies that the name of Delight Marketing was changed in November 2016 to Lara Projects Pvt Ltd and in February this year it became Lara Projects LLP — a limited liability partnership with Rabri Devi, Tej Pratap and Tejashwi as directors”, a source said. Another Central probe agency, the Enforcement Directorate, which is also investigating the case, recently attached a three- acre plot worth ` 44.7 crores in Patna, which allegedly belonged to Rabri Devi’s family and where one of the biggest malls in the city was to come up.