NEW DELHI: In a major development in the CBI probe against Lalu Prasad and his family members, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has given the “go-ahead” for prosecution of additional member of railway board B K Aggarwal, who was allegedly one of the key conspirators in the ‘hotels-for-land’ scam during the RJD chief ’s tenure as railway minister in 2006.

Top sources told TOI, that the delay in sanction of prosecution had prevented a special CBI court from taking cognizance of the chargesheet against the RJD strongman and other accused.

Aggarwal was the general manager of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) when the alleged scam took place.

Officials said after the CVC’s “approval”, the railway ministry was bound to accord prosecution sanction against Aggarwal.

The delay had led to misgivings in JD(U) which parted ways with RJD over corruption charges against Lalu’s son Tejaswi, leading its spokesperson Sanjay Singh to doubt the CBI’s intent and wonder whether this marked a “match fixing”.

Lalu and Tejaswi have dismissed CBI’s charge as “political vendetta”. CBI sources expect the formalities related to prosecution sanction to be completed within a week following which agency will submit the sanction in court. The CBI is hopeful of the court taking cognisance of the chargesheet.

The agency had filed a chargesheet on April 16 against Lalu, his wife Rabri Devi , Tejaswi and Aggarwal, who allegedly colluded to give Sujata Hotels the contract for maintaining two railway-owned hotels, BNR Ranchi and BNR Puri, in 2006.

It has been alleged that tender terms for the hotels maintenance contract were tweaked at Lalu’s behest in favour of Sujata Hotels.

In exchange, Vinay Kochhar of Sujata Hotels sold a 3-acre plot in western Patna to Delight Marketing for Rs 1.47 crore which was way below the prevailing circle rate.

The CBI has alleged that Delight Marketing was a benami company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of Prem Gupta, Lalu’s aide who was corporate affairs minister in UPA, and it transferred the land to another company, Lara Projects, which is directly owned by the RJD chief ’s kin. This land, CBI claimed, was given as “kickback” against the contract.

Aggarwal, ex-IRCTC managing director P K Goel and ex-IRCTC director Rakesh Saxena were part of the conspiracy to allegedly rig the tender conditions to help Sujata Hotels grab the contract despite being ineligible.

