New Delhi: A Delhi district court on Monday (October 13) framed charges against the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s Lalu Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav in a CBI case pertaining to the alleged illegal leasing of railway hotels in exchange for discounted real estate in Patna.The Rouse Avenue court framed conspiracy and cheating charges against Lalu, Rabri Devi and Tejashwi, while also framing a corruption charge against the former, Bar and Bench reported.All three pleaded not guilty, in light of which the case will go to trial, the outlet added.A copy of the court’s order is awaited.Speaking to reporters following the court’s decision, Tejashwi, who is leader of the opposition in Bihar, said they would fight the charges and suggested that Monday’s development is linked to the upcoming assembly elections in his state.“Still, while respecting the court’s decision, we would like to say that we have been fighting and will continue to fight, and fighting storms is an especially enjoyable thing,” he said.In an FIR lodged in 2017, the CBI while naming former Bihar chief ministers Lalu and Rabri Devi alongside their son Tejashwi accused the RJD patriarch of colluding with hotel proprietors during his tenure as Union railways minister to have two hotels under the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) unfairly leased to the hoteliers in exchange for discounted land in Patna.Between 2005 and 2006 Sujata Hotel Private Limited was awarded sub-leases for two IRCTC hotels in Ranchi and Puri as part of a “rigged and manipulated” tendering process in exchange for some three acres of commercial land that its proprietor sold at below-market rates to one Delight Marketing Company, in which the wife of an RJD MP served as director on Lalu’s behalf and whose shares were later transferred to Rabri Devi and Tejashwi, the CBI alleges.Tender conditions were “modified in pursuance to a criminal conspiracy to suit the requirements” of Sujata, the agency has claimed, adding that the land in Patna which was sold in the allegedly quid pro quo deal was misrepresented as agricultural land to avoid stamp duties.Lalu while serving as railways minister was “aware about the whole matter and was keeping a track of the tender proceedings initiated by IRCTC”, the CBI alleged in the FIR in which it invoked sections of the Indian Penal Code as well as the Prevention of Corruption Act.While framing charges against the trio on Monday, special judge Vishal Gogne said per Bar and Bench that he had come to the prima facie conclusion that Yadav ‘intervened to influence the transfer of the hotels’.The ‘entire process amounted to crony capitalism in the garb of promoting private participation’ and the transfer is ‘prima facie fraudulent’, the website cited judge Gogne as saying.Tejashwi, who attended the proceedings in Delhi on Monday with his mother and his father as ordered, said afterwards that they have maintained that “such things will happen now that the elections are here”.“Still, while respecting the court’s decision, we would like to say that we have been fighting and will continue to fight, and fighting storms is an especially enjoyable thing … We have chosen a path of struggle, will be good travellers and will reach our destination,” he told mediapersons.Bihar will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11 respectively. Votes will be counted on the 14th.