ED SEIZES RS 44.75 CR WORTH OF LALU FAMILY’S PATNA LAND

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday seized 11 plots of land in Patna worth Rs 44.75 crore, attached by the agency in the name of a firm linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad's family, as part of the IRCTC hotel money laundering case.

The central probe agency was allowed to take possession of the seized assets by a designated PMLA authority recently, reports PTI.

Officials said possession documents were notified and a huge notice board, bearing the signature of Assistant Director of the Delhi zonal office-I, was on Tuesday put up at the contiguous plots, measuring about three acres, in Danapur near the Bihar capital. The action has been undertaken under section 8 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, they said.

The central probe agency had provisionally attached the plots, valued at Rs 44.75 crore (market rate), in December last year under the PMLA, in connection with the IRCTC hotel allotment case.

The authority, in its recent order, had said that the assets were "involved in money laundering."

The land pieces are in the name of Delight Marketing Co Pvt Ltd, now Lara Projects LLP, whose managing partner is Lalu's wife Rabri Devi, partners are his sons Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, and Meridian Construction India Limited promoted by Abu Dojana, an MLA of the former Bihar Chief Minister's party – the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD).

When the ED attached these assets last year, a shopping mall was supposed to come up on these plots. It also had recorded the statements of Rabri Devi, Tejashwi, the former deputy chief minister of Bihar, and others in the case.