Railway Ministry officials put great pressure to clean the job application of Group-D candidates, who allegedly gifted land parcel in exchange for railway jobs to former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad and his family, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claimed before the Delhi court on Monday.
The CBI case is related to alleged transfer of land to Lalu and his family at cheap rates in exchange for appointments in Group-D in Central Railway between 2004 and 2009, when Lalu was the Union Railway Minister. The agency has named 102 people as an accused in the case, who is currently in the argument of hearing on the allegations.
Senior Advocate and Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) DP Singh argued, “All applicants who applied for Options (Group D Railway Jobs) jobs, came from the same state … how could this happen?”
“These were most poor people of Bihar who had land … which could be interested in Lalu and family,” he said. The SPP said, “We have examples of cash payment … for these people, it was beneficial to secure a government job.”
Singh argued, “On the same day, many applications were approved. Look at the speed. It is such a tired process … how it happened so soon,” Singh argued. “We have approval that tell us that the pressure (from the Ministry of Railways) was very big … most certificates were fake and were never verified.”
According to the CBI, Lalu “impressed the two officials of the Central Railway … based on his status as the minister of the Railways … and appointed the owners and family members of the land parcel owners, which was interested in him.” The CBI had earlier alleged that the land parcel in Patna was transferred to Lalu and his family either by candidates (who wanted jobs) or their family members.
The CBI charge sheet said, “As a Kwid Pro Quo, candidates sold land directly or through their relatives or family members, Lalu Prasad Yadav, which is at highly concessional rates from 1/4 to 1/5th of prevailing market rates.” Overall, Lalu’s family acquired more than 1 lakh square feet of land for only Rs 26 lakh (against a circle rate of more than Rs 4.39 crore), alleging the central agency.
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On Monday, SPP Singh argued before the court that the option is hired only on rare occasions. Singh said, “These options are engaged only in the absence of non-regular employees … Usually when people are on leave to fill a range of group D vacancies,” Singh said.
He said, “There were no advertisements … no exaggeration was shown. There was no justification for renting options. How many applications in bulk can be decided immediately,” he said.
According to the CBI, the documents supplied by those given to jobs in this alleged scam had frightening discrepancies. For example, some candidates had sequential roll numbers on their caste and residence certificates, meaning that the accused had obtained these certificates “completely and for a general purpose” by the CBI.
(Tagstotransmit) Railway (T) Ministry of Railway (T) Lalu Prasad (T) Lalu Prasad Yadav (T) Lalu Yadav (T) RJD (T) CBI (T) CBI (T) Land for Land (T) Land (T) Land for Jobs (T)
