Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti appears before Enforcement Directorate in money laundering case

New Delhi: Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's daughter Misa Bharti on Tuesday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a Rs 8,000 crore money laundering case.

Lalu's son-in-law Shailesh Kumar had, however, skipped the ED's summons yesterday.

The ED action comes in the wake of the raids it carried out on three properties of Shailesh Kumar and Bharti for alleged money laundering in the Jain brothers' entry operators case.

The searches were carried out on the basis of a criminal complaint filed on February 11 with the Serious Fraud Investigating Office (SFIO) in Delhi's Tis Hazari court against Jain brothers -- Surendra Kumar Jain and Virendra Jain -- and Jagat Project Pvt Ltd, chartered accountant Rajesh Kumar Agrawal and others for criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery under the provisions of the Companies Act.

On May 22, the Directorate had arrested Agrawal, allegedly linked to Bharti, from Delhi, while Jain brothers were arrested on March 20.

According to the ED official, Bharti, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar, and her husband were directors of Mishail Packers and Printers Private Limited, which is suspected to have entered into 'benami' deals for the purchase of a farmhouse in Delhi's Bijwasan area.

The agency said it was detected that 1,20,000 shares of Mishail Printers and Packers private limited were bought during 2007-08 at a rate of Rs 100 per share by four shell companies -- Shalini Holdings Limited, Ad-Fin Capital Services (India) Pvt Ltd, Mani Mala Delhi Properties Pvt Ltd, and Diamond Vinimay Pvt Ltd.

These 1,20,000 shares, it said, were bought back by Bharti at Rs 10 per unit.

Rajesh Agarwal allegedly provided accommodation entries (black funds) of about Rs 60 lakh to Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited.

Shell companies are firms set up with nominal paid up capital, high reserves and surplus on account of receipt of high share premium, investment in unlisted companies and no dividend income or high amount of cash-in-hand.

The ED is the third central body probing the alleged financial irregularities by the Lalu Prasad family after the CBI and the Income Tax department which recently attached benami assets worth about Rs 180 crore (market value) in its investigation against them.

(With Agency inputs)