Monday, September 11 2006 16:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: A vigilance court today issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against RJD MP Sadhu Yadav in a case of forgery and cheating, an off-shoot of the multi-crore Bihar flood relief scam.

Designated vigilance judge R N Prasad, who had reserved his order on Saturday on a petition filed by Yadav seeking quashing of the Bihar Vigilance Investigation Bureau's prayer for NBW, rejected the plea of the brother-in-law of Railway minister Lalu Prasad.

The instant case relates to transfer of Rs six lakh "slush money" to Yadav's account from that of Santosh Jha, a supplier of relief materials and alleged kingpin of the scam which rocked the state in 2004.

Yadav had claimed the money had come from sale of an Opel Astra car to Sribhagwan Jha, father of Santosh, who is lodged in the Beur Central jail here.

Contesting Yadav's claim that the money in his account in the State Bank of India, Secretariat branch, came from the car sale, the Bureau had on September five registered the forgery and cheating case. It also said the vehicle in question did not belong to him.

The court, however, posted the hearing of the anticipatory bail plea of Yadav and regular bail petition of the then District Transport Officer of Patna Brijraj Rai for September 16. This followed after defence counsel Janardan Rai urged it to call for the memo of evidence from the Vigilance Bureau.

Since public prosecutor P P Singh did not object, the court said it would take up the matter on September 16.