Vadra grilled by ED over Haryana land deal; cries vendetta
Businessman Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday in connection with an ongoing money laundering investigation linked to a land deal in Haryana.
The ED had initially summoned Vadra on April 8, but he requested for a change in the date for his appearance.
The latest questioning pertains to a February 2008 land transaction in Shikohpur, Gurugram, where Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd — a company linked to Vadra — purchased 3.5 acres of land from Onkareshwar Properties for Rs 7.5 crore.
According to official sources, the mutation of the land was processed within 25 hours, prompting suspicions of irregularities.
It has been alleged that Vadra’s company, subsequently, sold the parcel of land for Rs 58 crore to real estate giant DLF.
The Haryana Police had registered a case related to the transaction in 2018 and the probe agency subsequently initiated its investigation based on the FIR. The ED suspects the proceeds to be part of a laundering scheme and is trying to probe the money trail behind the windfall gains.
Interestingly, the Haryana Government had in 2023 informed the Punjab and Haryana High Court that no violation of rules or regulations was detected in the transfer of land by Skylight Hospitality to DLF Universal Ltd in Gurugram, a case in which former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and several others were booked for cheating and other offences.
Meanwhile, Vadra, who was questioned at the agency headquarters for nearly three hours, called the ED summons a case of “political vendetta” and criticised the repeated inquiries against him despite his previous cooperation.
“I’ve spent hours with them before and submitted thousands of pages of documents. Yet, they keep digging up the same matters,” he told reporters while walking the 2-km road stretch from his Sujan Singh Park residence to the agency’s office on APJ Abdul Kalam Road.
Vadra accused the government of misusing investigative agencies to suppress dissent. “This is nothing but political vendetta. Every time I speak up for the minorities, they try to silence me. They tried to stop Rahul in Parliament too,” he said. Nonetheless, he assured that he would continue to cooperate with the authorities, as he has done in the past.
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