LTC Scam: Hamid Ansari gives approval for prosecution of JD(U) MP Anil Sahani

New Delhi: In a first for the Rajya Sabha, house chairman Hamid Ansari has given his approval to CBI to prosecute JD(U) MP Anil Sahani for alleged corruption in LTC Scam.

Ansari gave the sanction to prosecute Sahani under Section 197 of CrPC which gives the Rajya Sabha chairman the authority to give sanction to prosecute sitting MPs of the upper House.

Sahani is among the four people named by the CBI in its 2015 chargesheet – the LTC scam was exposed in 2013.

Sahani and the other accused allegedly used forged e-tickets and fake boarding passes to cause a loss of Rs 23.71 lakh to the exchequer.

While it is for the first time that a sanction has been to prosecute a sitting member of the Rajya Sabha, the Lok Sabha has had two such instances in the past.

First was in 2010 when then Speaker Meira Kumar acted against Congress MP Rajaram Pal in the cash-for-query scam. Kumar again gave a similar sanction to Delhi Police against BJP MP Ashok Argal in the cash-for-vote case.