 "ED summons Robert Vadra: What is the Haryana land deal case?")
Businessman Robert Vadra has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Haryana land deal case.
This is the second time that Vadra, the husband of Priyanka Gandhi and the brother-in-law of Rahul Gandhi, was summoned in the case.
The ED earlier summoned the 56-year-old for questioning on April 8.
The ED is likely to record Vadra’s statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Vadra was earlier questioned by the federal probe agency in a different money laundering case.
But what do we know about the case? What is Vadra saying?
Let’s take a closer look:
What do we know?
The case involves the purchase of land in Haryana.
As per Indian Express, Vadra had launched the firm Skylight Hospitality in 2007 with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh.
In 2008, Vadra purchased land in Manesar-Shikohpur in Gurgaon Shikohpur village from Onkareshwar Properties through the firm.
The land was then transferred to Vadra’s name within 24 hours – a procedure that usually takes three months.
Vadra, a month later, was then given permission to develop a housing society by Haryana’s town planning department – which issued a letter of intent allowing the setting up of a commercial colony.
At the time, the Congress was in power with Bhupinder Hooda as chief minister.
The value of the land subsequently spiked.
Vadra sold the land to real estate developer DLF in June for Rs 58 crore.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsDLF made the payment to Vadra over a period of time.
In the meantime, in 2011, Arvind Kejriwal, an anti-corruption activist at the time, claimed that Vadra had received a Rs 65 crore interest-free loan from DLF, as per News18.
Kejriwal alleged that Vadra was given favourable land deals in exchange for political favours.
It was only in 2012 that the deed for the land was finally transferred to DLF.
In October 2012, IAS officer Ashok Khemka began looking into the deal.
Khemka, who was Director General, Consolidation of Land Holdings and Land Records-cum-Inspector General of Registration at the time, cancelled the transfer of the land that Vadra had sold to DLF Universal for Rs 58 crore.
Khemka was transferred just hours after he began looking into the deal – on Hooda’s orders.
Khemka, however, set aside the transfer on the grounds that the officer who sanctioned the deal was not competent to do so.
The Haryana government then formed a three-member panel to investigate the matter.
The government later gave a clean chit to Vadra and alleged that Khemka had “acted beyond the authority vested in him”.
In 2018, an FIR was registered against Hooda, Vadra, and real estate companies DLF and Onkareshwar Properties.
It alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating, fraud, and forgery, and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
As per CNBC, DLF previously said that all its transactions with Vadra were part of regular business practices.
‘Nobody evading anything’
Vadra has denied there is any merit in the case.
“Nobody is evading anything. I am here today… I am expecting a conclusion. I am waiting for a conclusion,” Vadra was quoted as saying by Indian Express.
“There is nothing in the case. I have been summoned 15 times and interrogated for more than 10 hours every time for the last 20 years. Organising 23000 documents is not easy,” he added.
“I don’t know what is the fault. It is a political vendetta, only old accusations, rubbish, this is the misuse of the agencies,” Vadra was quoted as saying by PTI.
“Whenever I will speak up for people and make them heard, they will try to suppress me… I have always given all answers and continue to do so,” Vadra added as per ANI.
With inputs from agencies
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