Patna: In another setback to beleaguered Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad, the Income Tax Department has confiscated three landed properties owned by his wife Rabri Devi and daughter Hema Yadav. Rabri Devi also served as the chief minister of Bihar for eight years from July 1997 to March 2005.
All three landed plots located in the heart of Patna, the capital city of Bihar, were seized provisionally on Friday after the concerning parties failed to satisfy the IT sleuths. Authorities have also put a ban on sale of three properties and intimated the registration departments in this regard.
Authorities said the IT Department is soon to issue summons to Rabri Devi and her daughter for questioning. These properties could be permanently confiscated if the duo fails to satisfy the officials about their ownership. They could also face trials if the confiscated plots turn out to be benami properties.
Interestingly, all the three seized plots measuring 17.5 dismal were donated by Prasad’s domestic helps three years back in 2014. Of the three plots, 2.5 dismal of land worth Rs three million was donated by Lalan Chaudhary who worked as a peon in the Bihar Legislative Council and domestic servant in the house of the RJD president. IT authorises say the financial condition of Chaudhary is not such that he could purchase land.
Chaudhary again donated 7.5 dismal of land worth Rs6.2 million to Rabri Devi and her daughter the same year. Yet another plot measuring 7.5 dismal that was seized by the IT too was donated to Rabri Devi’s daughter the same year by another domestic servant Hridyanand Chaudhary.
The development comes barely a day after both RJD president Prasad and his son Tejashwi Yadav, former deputy chief minister of Bihar, were questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the land-for-hotel scam. The scam had taken place while Prasad served as the federal railway minister in the previous United Progressive Alliance-I government.
Last month, the Enforcement Directorate, a specialised financial investigation agency under the Government of India, had confiscated the Delhi farmhouse of RJD parliamentarian Misa Bharti in the multi-billion money laundering case. Bharti is the eldest daughter of RJD president Prasad.
As per reports, the farmhouse located in Bijwasan locality of south Delhi was attached provisionally under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The said property was apparently purchased in the year 2008-2009.
“The said property was purchased with Rs12 million involved in money-laundering,” an ED official has said. Reports said the attached farmhouse had been purchased in the name of Mishail Packers and Printers where Misa and her husband Shailesh Kumar are directors.
