A Delhi court will hear on Monday the arguments against Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad Yadav in the alleged land-for-jobs scam case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered a case against Yadav and others under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
A special judge of the Rouse Avenue Courts will hear the arguments today.
Earlier, the Delhi High Court had dismissed a petition filed by the RJD President seeking a stay on trial court proceedings.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Ravinder Dudeja issued notice on another petition filed by Yadav seeking quashing of the CBI FIR, three charge sheets, and the trial court orders taking cognizance of the said charge sheets.
Appearing for Yadav, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal sought stay on trial court proceedings on the grounds that CBI failed to obtain mandatory sanction under Section 17A of the PC Act. He said the initiation of investigation without such an approval vitiated the entire proceedings since inception, which was a jurisdictional error.
As per Section 17A, a police officer could not start an inquiry or investigation against a public servant for corruption without prior sanction, if the alleged offence was linked to a decision or recommendation the public servant made while doing official duty.
If the arguments were heard and charges finalised by the trial court, the petition may become infructuous, noted the Senior Counsel.
Representing CBI, Senior Advocate DP Singh vehemently opposed the plea on the grounds that the question of applicability of Section 17A to the offences under the PC Act existing prior to its amendment was pending consideration before a larger Bench of the Supreme Court.
The submissions could be considered by the Special Judge at the stage of framing of charges, he added.
The High Court dismissed the stay application on the grounds that the matter was listed before the Special Judge for arguments on charge. The single-judge Bench granted liberty to Yadav to urge all his contentions before the trial court at the stage of consideration of charges.
The petition filed by Yadav contended that the probe in the case had been initiated without obtaining a sanction mandated by Section 17A of the PC Act. The said illegality was also ignored by the Special Judge, it added.
the RJD President further submitted in his petition that he was being made to suffer through an ‘illegally-motivated’ probe, in clear violation of his fundamental right to fair investigation.
The plea contended that without such approval, any enquiry/inquiry/investigation undertaken would devoid ob initio. Section 17A of the PC Act provided a filter from vexatious litigation. The present scenario of regime revenge and political vendetta was exactly what Section 17A sought to restrict by protecting innocent persons, it added.
The very registration of the preliminary enquiry and registration of the FIR were barred by Section 17A of the PC Act as it related to public servants. The filing of charge sheets and passing of the cognizance orders and all consequent actions must fall, it noted.
CBI had filed a charge sheet in the case on October 10, 2022 against 16 persons, including Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti.
The national agency claimed that various residents of Bihar were appointed as substitutes in Group-D posts from 2004 to 2009 in different zones of Railways located at Kolkata, Jaipur, Hajipur, Jabalpur and Mumbai.
As per CBI, in lieu of the job, the appointees or their families transferred their land either in the name of the family members of the then Union Railways Minister Lalu Yadav or in the name of a company called M/s AK Infosystems Private Limited, which was later taken over by Yadav’s family.
CBI claimed that the appointments were not made in consonance with the standards and guidelines established by the Indian Railways for hiring.