New Delhi, February 11 The CBI told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday that RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi, and son Tejashwi Yadav cannot avoid trial in the IRCTC scam case simply because there was no sanction for their prosecution when the trial court took cognizance of the matter.
Appearing on behalf of the federal investigating agency before Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, who was hearing the petitions filed by the Yadav family members challenging the framing of charges against them, Additional Solicitor General D P Singh said that obtaining sanction under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act was not mandatory to prosecute the petitioners.
He also stated that a similar opinion was given in March 2020 by then Attorney General of India K K Venugopal.
Singh added that since the matter was "dragging on", a sanction was subsequently obtained, as was permitted under the law, and no prejudice was caused to the petitioners.
"Sanction is not required. But it was obtained. The sanction was obtained at a stage when proceedings under Section 207 (of the CrPC) were underway. And therefore, no prejudice was caused," the senior law officer said.
"The sanction can come later. There is no difficulty; the entire proceedings remain... You don't have to go back to the stage of taking cognizance unless some prejudice is caused. None of my friends have argued or shown what the prejudice that was caused," he further submitted.
On October 13, 2025, a trial court framed charges against Lalu Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi, Tejashwi Yadav, and 11 others in the case for the alleged offenses of cheating, criminal conspiracy, and corruption under the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Lalu, Rabri Devi, and Tejashwi have stated that the trial court framed charges without obtaining a sanction either under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act or under Section 197 of the CrPC.
The Additional Solicitor General said that the issue of framing charges under Section 197 of the CrPC was a matter of trial.
The trial court had also framed charges against Pradeep Kumar Goel, Rakesh Saxena, Bhupendra Kumar Agarwal, Rakesh Kumar Gogia, and Vinod Kumar Asthana under Section 13(2) read with Sections 13(1)(d)(ii) and (iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Section 13(2) deals with the punishment for criminal misconduct by a public servant, and Sections 13(1)(d)(ii) and (iii) deal with the abuse of position by a public servant to obtain favors.
The court had also directed that charges be framed under IPC Section 420 (cheating) against Lalu Prasad, Rabri Devi, Tejashwi, M/s LARA Projects LLP, Vijay Kochhar, Vinay Kochhar, Sarla Gupta, and Prem Chand Gupta.
The maximum punishment under the anti-graft law is 10 years, while that for cheating is seven years.