Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee [ Images ] has sought an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into allegations by members of Parliament belonging to the Janata Dal (United) that people sold their land to her predecessor Lalu Prasad's relatives in exchange for railway jobs and contracts.
"The allegations are being probed by the Railways' vigilance department also. And now it has been referred to the CBI," an official said on Thursday.
According to sale deeds, land worth crores of rupees have been sold to Prasad's close relatives in Gopalgunj and Patna.
Banerjee has said no force will be used to acquire land for railway projects anywhere in the country.
It should be mentioned here that earlier, Banerjee had accused Prasad of juggling the Railways' profit figures.
On the surplus funds with the Railways which Lalu had put at Rs 90,000 crore (Rs 900 billion), Banerjee had said that a corpus of Rs 8,361 crore (Rs 83.61 billion) remained after expenditure of Rs 13,600 crore (Rs 136 billion) on account of Pay Commission award last year and Rs 2,600 crore (Rs 26 billion) this year.
Prasad refuted the charge and sought to clear the issue of surplus funds saying he had mentioned the sum after keeping the expenditure out of it.
