ED questions Robert Vadra for 5 hours in Haryana land deal case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) grilled businessman Robert Vadra for the second consecutive day on Wednesday regarding a money laundering case linked to a 2008 Haryana land deal.

The grilling on Wednesday went on for about five hours, PTI reported.

Vadra, who is the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi’s brother-in-law, termed the ED action a “political vendetta” and claimed that the people of the country “do not trust the probe agencies”.

Vadra reached the ED office around 11 am. He was accompanied by his wife, Congress MP from Wayanad Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who hugged him before he entered for the grilling.

The grilling session was divided into two parts, with Vadra briefly going home to have lunch. He re-joined the questioning session after the meal and only left the office after 6 PM, along with his wife, who had stayed for the entire time in the visitors’ room.

The questioning will continue on Thursday.

What is the case against Robert Vadra?

According to the sources mentioned in the PTI report, Robert Vadra has been confronted with about a dozen questions during the around 10 hours he spent at the ED office over two days. His statement was being recorded by the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The probe against Vadra is linked to a land deal in Haryana’s Manesar-Shikohpur (now sector 83) in Gurugram. The deal happened in February 2008 and was done by a company named Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd, where Vadra was a director earlier. The company bought a 3.5-acre plot of land in Shikohpur from Onkareshwar Properties at a price of ₹7.5 crore, which was later sold to real estate giant DLF for ₹58 crore in 2012.

The deal was flagged in October 2012 by IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who was then posted as the director general of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum-Inspector-General of Registration of Haryana. Khemka cancelled the deal, categorising the transaction as violative of the state consolidation Act and some related procedures. It is worth noting that Congress was in government in Haryana at that time, with Bhupinder Singh Hooda serving as the chief minister.

The BJP had termed the deal as ‘corruption’ and nepotism due to his links with the Nehru-Gandhi family. The Haryana Police lodged an FIR in the case in 2018, four years after the BJP came to power in the state.

Vadra asserted that he has always cooperated with investigating agencies and has furnished a multitude of documents, while saying that cases as old as 20 years need closure. He claimed that if he had joined the BJP, things would have been different for him, PTI reported.