ED grills Vadra for 5 hours on second day; called again today
Businessman Robert Vadra, the brother-in-law of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, was questioned for five hours by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the second consecutive day on Tuesday in connection with a money laundering investigation tied to a controversial 2008 land deal in Haryana.
Accompanied by his wife and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi, Vadra appeared at the federal agency’s office in Delhi around 11 am.
The two embraced each other before Vadra entered the ED premises. Officials confirmed his statement was recorded under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), with questioning likely to continue even on Thursday.
Priyanka stayed in the visitors’ room at the agency’s office ‘Pravartan Bhawan’ at APJ Abdul Kalam Road all through and left with her husband when he was allowed to go home for lunch around 1.10 pm.
The investigation focuses on a February 2008 transaction involving Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd, a firm in which Vadra was once a director.
The company acquired 3.5 acres of land in Gurugram’s Shikohpur village (now Sector 83) from Onkareshwar Properties for Rs 7.5 crore. At the time, Haryana was governed by the Congress under then Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. In 2012, the land was sold to real estate giant DLF for Rs 58 crore.
The deal sparked controversy later that year when senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka, serving as Haryana’s Director General of Land Consolidation and Registration, cancelled the mutation.
Khemka cited violations of the state’s consolidation laws and procedural irregularities. The issue quickly snowballed into a political storm, with the then opposition BJP alleging corruption and nepotism, pointing to Vadra’s family ties with the Congress leadership.
In 2018, the Haryana Police registered an FIR to formally investigate the transaction. Since then, Vadra has faced multiple rounds of questioning in separate money laundering probes.
The 56-year-old businessman labelled the ED’s actions as “political vendetta”. He insisted he had consistently cooperated with the authorities and submitted extensive documentation over the years. “There has to be a point where cases, especially those dating back 20 years, must reach closure,” he said.
Vadra further said he was surprised to see the second summon from the ED as he had already appeared “15 times before” the agency in the same case. “I was questioned for 10 hours and I submitted 23,000 documents…. I showed my statements from 2019 onwards and told the agency that I had answered the same questions in 2019 too. The ED officials were themselves shocked. I can only say the agencies are being misused,” said Vadra.
He said when the same case was being investigated in Haryana, the administration found nothing wrong in it. “Khattar ji gave me a clean chit in the case. I fail to understand why I am being questioned again after seven years,” he said.
India