New Delhi: Robert Vadra, businessman and son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, Tuesday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials in connection with a money laundering probe, a week after his refusal to honour the ED summons for an 8 April appearance.
The money laundering case for which Vadra appeared before the officials at the ED headquarters in New Delhi concerns a 3.5-acre land acquired in Gurugram, Haryana.
Outside the HQ, Vadra told media persons that the agency summoned him because he recently spoke out on minority rights and questioned the ED timing immediately after he said he would enter active politics.
Priyanka Gandhi’s husband, Robert Vadra, has two more money laundering cases, including one linked to arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari, pending against him.
In the case linked to the Gurugram land acquisition through NRI businessman C.C. Thampi, the ED, in a December 2023 prosecution complaint, elaborated on Vadra’s alleged role.
The case
The money laundering case against Robert Vadra stems from an FIR by the Gurgaon police commissionerate on a complaint by one Surinder Sharma.
Based on the FIR at Kherki Daula police station, the ED registered its Enforcement Case Information Report in January 2019 against Vadra’s firm Skylight Hospitality, real-estate major DLF, and Congress’s Bhupider Singh Hooda, the Haryana chief minister at the time, from 2005 to 2014.
The ED registered its Enforcement Case Information Report in January 2019 over alleged irregularities by Skylight Hospitality in acquiring the land concerned and its subsequent transfer to DLF in 2012.
Measuring nearly 3.5 acres, the land lies in Shikohpur village, Gurugram.
Sharma alleged in his complaint Skylight Hospitality purchased the land from Onkareshwar Properties at Rs 7.5 crore in 2008, later selling it to DLF Universal Limited, a DLF subsidiary, at Rs 58 crore in September 2012.
Sharma further alleged that Skylight Hospitality could buy the land due to Hooda’s influence, securing a commercial license for the land to develop a residential colony on the parcel. At the time, the then-CM, Hooda, also held the town and country planning department portfolio.
The FIR further alleged a suspected quid pro quo transaction between the Hooda-led Congress government and the DLF for purchasing the Vadra land at an inflated price. For that, the then-government of Haryana allegedly allotted DLF a 350 acre-land in Wazirabad, Gurugram. The company, allegedly, made Rs 5,000 crore from that land parcel.
However, on 9 March 2022, the town and country planning department issued an order cancelling DLF’s license, saying no development work could take place on the Wazirabad land.
Four and a half years later, in April 2023, Haryana Police, in an affidavit, told the Punjab and Haryana High Court, “No regulations/rules have been violated in said transaction [between Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality and DLF].”
In the same affidavit, the then-government of Manohar Lal Khattar told the court that there was no violation, and the ownership of the 350-acre Wazirabad land—alleged to have been transferred to DLF by the Hooda government—was still with the state government.
However, facing criticism, the Khattar government later said that the tehsildar report was erroneously being treated as a clean chit.
Suggesting that Hooda was still under investigation, a Haryana government spokesperson said in April 2023: “The focus of the SIT (Special Investigation Team)’s probe is not limited to just the revenue loss; rather, it aims to expose all those involved in the criminal conspiracy, with the motive of giving high financial gains to certain individuals or a quid pro quo involving underhand dealings.”
However, months later, in November 2023, the high court pulled up Haryana Police for—what it called—the “crawling” pace of its probe, adding that there had been no significant progress in five years.
“We find that in FIR No. 288 dated 01.09.2018 registered under sections 420, 468, 471, 120-B IPC and Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, police station Kherki Daula, Gurugram, the investigation has been crawling since the last five years. Therefore, we direct the investigation [to] be completed in this case at the earliest,” Justice Harpreet Kaur Jeewan remarked.
When called by ThePrint, the SIT head, Gurugram Deputy Commissioner of Police Virender Vij, refused to confirm whether the police had filed a chargesheet in the case.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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