Patna: An Enforcement Directorate (ED) team on Tuesday took possession of land belonging to RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his family members at Saguna Mor on the city's outskirts. A shopping mall billed as "Bihar's biggest" was to be built there.

The ED action - just a day after Lalu celebrated his 71st birthday and projected the unity of his family, especially his sons Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav - came as part of the railways land for hotel allotment case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

A designated PMLA authority allowed the central agency to take possession of the assets as it was in the name of a firm linked to Lalu's family.

The 11 plots on which the mall was to come up are spread across 115 cottahs and the construction was to cost Rs 750 crore. But the Union ministry of environment and forests stopped the construction as environmental clearance had not been sought. The plot, worth Rs 45 crore, was attached by the income-tax department last June.

The plots are in the name of Delight Marketing Company Private Limited, now Lara Projects LLP - whose managing partner is Lalu's wife Rabri Devi and partners are his sons Tejashwi and Tej Pratap - and Meridian Construction India Limited promoted by former RJD MLA Abu Dojana.

The ED had registered a case against Lalu, his family members including Tejashwi, and others under the provisions of the PMLA last July.

The ED case was based on a CBI FIR, which had alleged that Lalu, during his tenure as Union railway minister in the UPA-I government, had handed over maintenance of two railways hotels to a private company in 2004 in lieu of land in Patna through a benami company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of former Union minister and RJD MP Prem Chand Gupta.