Delhi high court issues notice to CBI in Lalu Prasad Yadav’s plea against land-for-jobs charges

The Delhi high court on Wednesday issued notice to the CBI on a petition by RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav challenging a trial court’s order framing corruption and criminal conspiracy charges against him and family members in the alleged land-for-jobs scam.

The Delhi high court on Wednesday issued notice to the CBI on a petition by Rashtra Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav challenging a trial court’s order framing corruption and criminal conspiracy charges against him and family members in the alleged land-for-jobs scam.

A bench of Justice Manoj Jain sought the CBI’s response to Yadav’s petition against the trial court orders of January 9 and February 16, fixing March 17 as the next hearing date.

A bench of Justice Manoj Jain sought the CBI’s response to Yadav’s petition against the trial court orders of January 9 and February 16, fixing March 17 as the next hearing date.

On January 9, special judge Vishal Gogne of Rouse Avenue court framed charges against former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi, sons Tejashwi and Tej Pratap Yadav, and daughter Misa Bharti in the scam. The judge noted that Yadav had used the railway ministry as his “personal fiefdom” to orchestrate a criminal enterprise during his tenure as Union railway minister. The ruling highlighted an overarching conspiracy in which public employment served as a bargaining chip to secure favourable land transfers in the names of Yadav’s family members. The court formally framed the charges on February 16.

Justice Jain also scheduled hearing of a pending petition by Yadav’s close aide Bhola Yadav, challenging the trial court’s orders pardoning five accused in the scam and allowing them to turn approver. “Learned counsel for CBI appears on advance notice and, without prejudice to his rights and contentions, accepts notice,” the court said in the order.

The bench restrained the CBI from examining the approvers until it decides the petitions by Yadav and Bhola Yadav. “The question is that the approver needs not be examined unless we hear this petition. Let it (trial) go on, you (CBI) examine others…,” the bench told CBI lawyer additional solicitor general DP Singh.

Yadav’s lawyers, Maninder Singh and Kapil Sibal, argued that the agency’s case relies entirely on approvers’ statements, noting that no job recipients had complained of paying bribes. They added that Yadav played no role in recruiting Class IV railway employees, whose appointments during his tenure were later regularised after he left the ministry. The senior lawyers pointed out that the first chargesheet contained no approvers. “After one year of the first chargesheet, the approver’s statement was recorded,” Singh said.

The CBI registered the case on May 18, 2022, alleging that Yadav, as Union railway minister from 2004 to 2009, allotted group D railway jobs in exchange for land parcels transferred to his family members and associates.

The agency’s 2023 chargesheet before a Delhi court named 78 accused, including 30 railway ministry officials. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) then filed a money-laundering case, submitting its chargesheet in 2024 naming Yadav and family members among those who acquired illicit wealth through the alleged corruption.

To be sure, a coordinate bench in January reserved verdict on Yadav’s separate petition to quash the land-for-jobs case.