Non-bailable arrest warrant against Sadhu Yadav

A vigilance court on Monday issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Rashtriya Janata Dal member of Parliament Sadhu Yadav in a case of forgery and cheating, an off-shoot of the multi-crore Bihar flood relief scam.

Designated Vigilance Judge R N Prasad, who had reserved his order on Saturday on a petition filed by Yadav seeking quashing of the Bihar Vigilance Investigation Bureau's prayer for non-bailable warrant, rejected the plea of the brother-in-law of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.

The instant case relates to transfer of Rs 6 lakh "slush money" to Yadav's account from that of Santosh Jha, a supplier of relief materials and alleged kingpin of the scam which rocked the state in 2004.

Yadav had claimed the money had come from the sale of an Opel Astra car to Sribhagwan Jha, father of Santosh, who is lodged in the Beur Central jail in Patna.

Contesting Yadav's claim that the money in his account in the State Bank of India, Secretariat branch, came from the car sale, the bureau had on September 5 registered the forgery and cheating case.

It also said the vehicle in question did not belong to him. The court, however, posted the hearing of the anticipatory bail plea of Yadav and regular bail petition of the then district transport officer of Patna Brijraj Rai for September 16.

This followed after defence counsel Janardan Rai urged it to call for the memo of evidence from the Vigilance Bureau.

Since Public Prosecutor P P Singh did not object, the court said it would take up the matter on September 16.

Defence counsel Rai contended the bureau did not have any fresh evidence in the case and pointed out that in a similar case relating to the sale of the car, his client had been granted bail by the Patna high court.

The first information report registered against Yadav on September 5 disputed his claim that the money had come from the sale of the vehicle he (Sadhu) had purchased from one Sumi Ranjan Jena of Delhi and sold to Sribhagwan Lal Jha on June 18, 2004, and that it was not the "slush money" of the relief scam.

The FIR said Jena had on May 18, 2006, given a statement to a metropolitan magistrate in Delhi that his vehicle was purchased on loan from ICICI bank and "since I had not paid back (the loan), the car was still hypothecated".

"As such, Jena could not have sold the vehicle to Yadav," the FIR said adding, in his statement before the magistrate, Jena had claimed that he had given the vehicle (DL7CA-9620) to Yadav for a few days for use, but he "virtually usurped" it.

"It was found during investigation that the ICICI bank in Delhi and the motor licencing authority there had not issued any no-objection certificate for the sale of the vehicle," the FIR said.

Additional Director General of Vigilance Bureau Neelmani said during the investigation of records at District Transport Office, Patna, it was found that Brijraj Rai, the then DTO, had indulged in "antedating falsified documents on June 18, 2006, to show the vehicle sale was made on June 18, 2004".