Court cases will continue against me till BJP in power: Tejashwi

Patna, Oct 17 (IANS) Bihar's Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Monday left for New Delhi to appear before the special CBI court in connection with the IRCTC scam on Tuesday.

Interacting with media persons in Patna airport, he said: "Such court appearances will take place until they (BJP) will stay in power."

"It was clear on the day of the swearing-in ceremony when we were taking oath and the CBI conducted raids on the leaders of the RJD. So this is not new for us. It will take place until they stay in power," he said, without taking the name of the BJP.

"The court has served notice to me and I will physically appear before the CBI court of Delhi on Tuesday. We respect the judicial system of the country and have faith in it to get justice," he said.

The CBI court had issued a notice to Tejashwi Yadav on September 17, asking him to appear before it. It also said that if Tejashwi Yadav violates the conditions on which he was given bail, the court would cancel it immediately.

The CBI had alleged to the court that Tejashwi Yadav and his family members were involved in threatening its officials of CBI openly in a bid to influence the investigation. He also held a press conference and tried to stop the investigation, it claimed.

The agency also claimed that Tejashwi is facing economic offence charges and the way he and his family members tried to influence the investigation is a violation of the terms and conditions on which the court had granted bail to him.

Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Misa Bharti, Hema Yadav, Rabri Devi and others were facing charges of corruption in the IRCTC scam. The CBI registered FIR against Tejashwi Yadav and others in 2017 and the court had given bail to him on October 6, 2018.

The IRCTC land for job scam came up between 2004 to 2009 when Lalu Prasad Yadav was the Railway Minister. During his tenure, two hotels were given on lease without following the norms. One of the hotels was allotted to Sarla Gupta, who is wife of Prem Gupta, a close friend of the RJD chief and a Rajya Sabha member then.

Besides Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family members, Prem Gupta, Sarla Gupta, railway officials Rakesh Saksena and P.K. Goyal were also accused in this case.