Money laundering case: ED files charge sheet against Misa Bharti, husband

In more trouble for Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a charge sheet against Lalu's daughter Misa Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar in a money laundering case.

Meanwhile, a Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Ranchi will pronounce its verdict in the fodder scam case in which Misa's father and former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav is an accused.

Both Kumar and Misa Bharti have been questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for their alleged role in a firm, Ms Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited, their other finances and links with a chartered accountant who was arrested by the agency earlier in the case.

The ED had on July 8 conducted searches at three Delhi farmhouses of Bharti, Kumar and the firm.

The agency had attached a farm house in Palam sometime back and it was now probing the alleged slush funds used to purchase this asset by the couple, they said.

Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar are being probed over allegations that they acquired benami or proxy ownership of land at throwaway rates. The couple allegedly have links with a firm - Ms Mishail Packers and Printers Private Limited - which is suspected to have entered into benami deals for purchase of a farm house in Delhi's Bijwasan area.

In all, six members of the Lalu Yadav family are suspected to have purchased properties in the name of others to conceal who really owns them. If convicted under the Benami Transactions Act, they face up to seven years in jail and a hefty fine.

Lalu Yadav's party, the RJD, is a member of the coalition government in Bihar led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. His two sons are ministers in the Bihar government and have rejected the charges of corruption and alleged "political vengeance" against his family by the BJP, of which he is a sharp critic.

OneIndia News (with PTI inputs)