Land-For-Jobs Scam: Delhi High Court Rejects Lalu Prasad Yadav's Plea To Halt Trial

Refusing to allow Yadav’s application, a bench of Justice Ravindra Dudeja said that the matter was already listed before the Special Judge for arguments on the charge.

The high court observed that the petitioner is free to raise his objections before the trial court, as there was “no compelling reason to intervene”.

The former Union Railway Minister had approached the HC seeking the cancellation of the FIR registered by the CBI. His counsel, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, argued that the agency continued its investigation without obtaining the required sanction against him.

“Why should I go to the trial court and argue on a charge? Cognisance itself is bad,” he said, claiming that the case lacked a legal basis.

“No FIR was registered between 2004 and 2009, and the CBI’s decision to register an FIR in 2020—after a closure report had already been filed,” he highlighted.

In response, the CBI maintained that the trial court was the appropriate forum to consider these issues. “It’s a case where public servants were told by people of the minister to do these selections; land was taken, and that’s why it’s called the land-for-job scam,” the agency argued.

The scam case is linked to Lalu Yadav during his tenure as Railway Minister in the UPA-1 government. It is alleged that during this period, there were several irregularities in the recruitment of Group-D posts of the Railways, as land was taken from the candidates instead of jobs.

Later, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Lalu, his wife Rabri Devi, son Tejashwi Yadav, daughter Misa Bharti and many others in this case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also probing the money laundering aspect of the case.

On May 9, the President of India granted sanctions to prosecute Lalu Yadav in a money laundering case linked to the land-for-jobs scam. The sanction was accorded under Section 197(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Section 218 of the BNSS, 2023), a critical legal requirement for proceeding against a former minister.