The Income-Tax department has attached a property worth more than ₹3 crore near Patna, suspected to be a benami asset held by RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s family members who are facing investigation in a land-for-hotels scam.
I-T department officials have put an attachment notice on the said property in Sheikhpura locality of the State capital.
“The notice of attachment was affixed on the property, estimated to be worth ₹3.5 crore, in Sheikhpura locality yesterday,” a senior I-T department official said on Friday.
The official said the property is in the name of a company, Fairgrow Holding. He said a few members of the Lalu family were directors in the firm “till a few years ago”.
Notices unanswered
He said Lalu’s sons Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap, besides daughters Ragini and Chanda, are no longer directors of the company. “However, notices sent to the company several times were not answered and no other claimant of the property came forward. It suggested the property was a benami holding.”
Former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad is currently serving sentences in a number of fodder scam cases.
Members of his family have been named in cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate and the I-T department in connection with the land-for-hotels scam.
The scam relates to transfer of prime properties to Prasad’s family by a hotelier brothers of Patna in return for getting contract for running two Railway hotels in Ranchi and Puri when Prasad was the Railway Minister in UPA-I government.
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