Court clears Lalu Prasad's foreign tour

Patna, June 19 (UNI) A special court here today granted permission to Railway Minister Lalu Prasad to undertake his proposed European tour from June 23 to July 8.

Special CBI judge Munilal Paswan, in his judgement pronounced after hearing a petition seeking permission for the said tour, noted that Mr Prasad would lead an Indian delegation to a number of European countries with the purpose of development of Indian Railways.

The prayer seeking permission of the Court to undertake the trip abroad was sought on June 13 and CBI's deputy legal advisor L R Ansari did not oppose the plea when the petition came up for hearing today.

Earlier, the court had asked the counsel for Mr Prasad, Pradeep Kumar to submit the original copies of the tour programme which was complied with.

During the tour, Mr Prasad would lead a high level delegation of the Indian Railways to Britain, France, Austria, Italy and Germany.

Mr Prasad would participate in a high level meeting of Union of International Railways in Paris and ink an agreement at Rome with Italian National Railways.

Similar permission was granted earlier also to the Railway Minister to visit Pakistan as a member of a delegation he also attended the funeral of late Palestian leader Yasser Arafat.

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