Patna: Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Monday accused RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his family of buying a posh property from the Tata group through a shell company at a "throw-away price".

The property in question is the 5 Riding Road house located near Patna airport, which was provisionally attached by the income tax department in February this year. The building used to be the office and guesthouse of Tata Steel before it was sold to Fairgrow Holdings Pvt Ltd, a company registered in Calcutta, in 2002.

Repeated phone calls, text messages and emails to Tata Steel failed to elicit any response.

Modi shared details of the registration deed by which the Riding Road property in Patna was sold by Tata Steel to Fairgrow in 2002, when Rabri Devi was the chief minister of Bihar.

"Why did the Tata company sell its property to a fake company?" Modi said.

He questioned how Lalu's younger son Tejashwi Yadav and other members of the family could become owners of Fairgrow within 10 years of being formed.

"The modus operandi is the same," Modi said. "First, acquire property through fake companies and then take over such companies."

Two of Lalu's daughters, Chanda Yadav and Ragini Lalu, are listed as directors of Fairgrow, but not Tejashwi.

Asked why he did not get the matter probed as the NDA government is in power at the Centre as well as in the state, Modi said it would be better for Lalu's family, the owner of the property, to speak about it. Besides, he said, the income tax department should ask Tata Steel why it sold its property to a fake company.

Modi also sought an answer from the Lalu family about one Rajesh Kumar, who had paid Rs 65 lakh on behalf of Fairgrow to buy the property from Tata.

RJD spokesman and MLA Shakti Singh Yadav termed Modi's accusations as "below-the-belt" politics and showed that he was "mentally bankrupt".

"Everything is in the people's domain. He (Sushil Modi) has termed even Tejashwi Prasad Yadav's registered properties as benami," Yadav said.