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A Delhi court has ordered framing of charges against Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and former railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, his family members and others in the alleged land-for-job scam.
According to PTI report, Special Judge Vishal Gogne said Yadav used the railway ministry as his personal fiefdom in order to carry out a criminal enterprise, where public employment was used as a bargaining chip to acquire land parcels by the Yadav family in connivance with railway officials and his close aides.
Orally pronouncing the substantive portion of the order, the judge said that the Central Bureau of Investigation’s final report revealed an ‘overarching conspiracy on the touchstone of grave suspicion’.
He also rejected the plea for discharge by the accused, including Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family members, as ‘unwarranted’ underlining that the former railway minister and others were ‘operating as a criminal enterprise to usurp land’.
The judge also highlighted the ‘abuse of decision’ by railway officials.
“Description of charge sheet constitutes the essentiality and core in the criminality as described,” he said.
The court framed charges in the case against 41 persons, and discharged 52, which included railway officials and substitutes who did not part away with their land.
