Lalu’s daughter on ED radar in shell company probe

Misa Bharti, daughter of former Bihar Chief Ministers Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi, will be questioned by the Enforcement Directorate along with her husband Shailesh Kumar for allegedly amassing benami properties and running shell companies. The Sunday Guardian was the first to make public the news about their alleged shell companies in the report Lalu’s daughter, sons concealed information in election affidavits (16 April).

Misa, a Rajya Sabha member from her father’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, and Shailesh have been asked by the Income Tax Department to appear before it on 6 and 7 June.

One of the shell companies that Misa allegedly did not disclose in her election affidavit was identified as New Delhi’s New Friends Colony-based Mischail (apparently a combination of Misa and Shailesh). Her brothers, Tejashwi and Tej Pratap, both ministers in the Bihar government, are owners of over 40 companies. Officials aware of the development claimed they would be questioned after Misa appears before the I-T Department.

The alleged money laundering done by three of Lalu’s nine children came to light after Misa’s chartered accountant, Rajesh Aggarwal was arrested and the ED interrogated him for three days. Aggarwal allegedly helped the Lalu family to float shell companies and invest their alleged black money in them. Before the ED swung into action, the Income Tax department had searched around 20 residential and business premises belonging to Lalu Yadav’s immediate family members and business partners. Officials said on the condition of anonymity that the investigation has been approved by the “topmost office of the country”.

Trouble is likely to mount for the Lalu family as the CBI is taking interest in the alleged shady deals of his two sons who are accused of misusing their clout as ministers in the Bihar government.

On Wednesday, CBI’s additional director Rakesh Kumar Asthana flew to Patna and held discussions with Patna based bureau officials who had submitted some documents for preliminary inquiry. In the late 1990s, Asthana, then DIG in the CBI, had investigated the fodder scam cases against Lalu Yadav. He was posted at the Dhanbad office of the CBI and had inquired into the fraudulent withdrawals from different government treasuries in the districts under Jharkhand, which was a part of undivided Bihar then. Lalu Yadav, convicted for five years in one of these cases, is currently facing trial in five other fodder scam cases in CBI courts in Ranchi and Patna.

ED sources said that they had generated “actionable information” from the interrogation of Rajesh Aggarwal. Sources said that Aggarwal was handling the benami properties and shell companies that were bought and operated allegedly by Misa and her husband.

“His interrogation has given us actionable information, which matches our initial assessment, on the basis of which he was arrested. He was operating and managing shell companies on behalf of his clients and after his interrogation is complete, we will call in the people for whom he was working, as in Misa Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar,” an ED officer said.

The officer said that in December 2016, the Prime Minister’s Office gave them the go-ahead to take action against the high and mighty without any fear. The Sunday Guardian had reported this at the time.

Earlier, Misa Bharti had denied any wrongdoing while responding to this newspaper’s queries. She had said: “My husband is an IIM MBA and is an entrepreneur after working in corporates for many years. He runs businesses where I’m also included as director. There are total four of them. I was appointed in 2004 when he started these companies. All details are filed annually before authorities in a transparent manner.” She claimed that “Everything is included in the affidavits regarding assets, though election declaration doesn’t ask for one’s status as a director in companies but all financial details has been declared.”

However, Misa’s failure to provide in her election affidavit the details of the shell companies that were allegedly being run by her, caught the attention of the investigating agencies, following which Aggarwal was arrested.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, an ally of Lalu Yadav, has condemned his two ministers Tej Pratap and Tejashwi for concealing their assets in their election affidavits, terming the lapse on their part as “unethical and immoral”. However, the spokesman of the Election Commission of India, Dhirendra Ojha, told this newspaper that “there is no move to take action against the two for concealing facts in their affidavits”.