‘Land for jobs’ probe: Delhi High Court seeks ED response to Amit Katyal’s interim bail plea, calls for medical status report

On May 22 the trial court rejected Katyal’s regular bail plea.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Katyal, argued before the high court that Katyal had undergone bariatric surgery and had lost 10 kg and required “immediate attention”.

The surgery was held at Medanta Hospital on April 9.

Citing an urgency in the matter, Sibal said, “When you undergo this surgery you have to have a special diet and have to go for regular check-ups. He (Katyal) is in custody in Tihar. He cannot survive like this. He was supposed to go to Medanta Hospital for a check-up on May 7, but he wasn’t allowed to go.”

On April 30, while declining to extend the interim bail of Katyal, the trial court, however, expressed displeasure with the ED for invoking a stringent provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to record the statement of a doctor consulted by Katyal. The court questioned the manner in which the ED had dealt with “an ordinary citizen” unconnected to the proceeds of crime in the case.

“There was absolutely no justification for the ED to subject an ordinary citizen to the stringent process of Section 50 without an iota of allegation of nexus of the doctors with the allegations of money laundering against accused Amit Katyal,” Special Judge Vishal Gogne of the Rouse Avenue Courts had said.

“If there are any lessons to be learnt from history, it would be observed that ‘strong’ leaders, laws and agencies generally come back to bite the very citizens they vow to protect. After the masculinity of the law has been expressed against the stated targets, such laws are invariably alleged to have been employed against the average citizens,” the trial court had further observed.

Katyal was arrested in November last year by the ED. The case stems from a CBI probe into allegations that people were given jobs in the Indian Railways in return for land parcels gifted or sold at cheap rates to the family and associates of Lalu Prasad when he was Railways minister.

Katyal and his A K Infosystems Private Limited had been under the scanner of the CBI and the ED in connection with the alleged land-for-jobs scam for a long time. The ED has found during its investigation that A K Infosystems had received a land parcel from a relative of a candidate who was selected as a Group-D substitute in the Railways. In 2014, Katyal allegedly handed over his company to the family members of Lalu Prasad Yadav.