Was Ashok Khemka's report on Robert Vadra based on real evidence?

Was IAS officer Ashok Khemka’s report on Robert Vadra’s land transactions a calculated act of vendetta designed to spearhead his own career, or are the concerns he raised valid ones that merit further investigation at the highest levels? This was the question up for debate on Karan Thapar’s show Devil’s Advocate aired on CNN-IBN. Khemka’s report, which has raked up the Robert Vadra issue once again, alleges that both the sale deed of 12 February, 2008 through which Vadra’s company ‘Skylight Hospitality’ bought land from ‘Onkareshwar Properties’ and Letter of Intent for granting a commercial license to his company issued by DTCP in March 2008 were “sham transactions” made to enable Vadra to collect market premium. He had also said that there were a series of sham transactions undertaken between his company Skylight Hospitality and DLF Universal Limited — beginning 2011 and culminating in 2012, and that Skylight hospitalities and DLF had failed to reveal or had suppressed the fact that they were no longer in possession of the land when they applied for a commercial license in November 2008. [caption id=“attachment_1042325” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Screengrab from CNN-IBN’s video.[/caption] In the show, Thapar asked Khemka if he had any solid evidence that no details were provided by the parties. “Your own report, your hundred page report reveals that part of the documentation provided by Skylight hospitality when they applied for a commercial license includes the collaboration agreement with DLF. Your report says so and that collaboration agreement with DLF again your report says actually included the fact that the transfer of the land had happened to DLF five months earlier. Clearly that information was provided when you look at the collaboration agreement. It wasn’t suppressed”, Thapar said_._ To this Khemka responded that the information had not been provided in the proscribed format so the authorities could not “fish out the information” and stood by his claim that he was a 100 percent sure that information had been suppressed. He also asked why, if Vadra was innocent, he had not come forward with evidence to contradict the claims made in the report. In addition to the suppression of information, Thapar and Khemka also discussed how Skylight Hospitalities issued a cheque to the tune of Rs 7.5 crore to buy land in Shikohpur near Delhi, when the company had just Rs one lakh in its account. Thapar forwarded the theory that the money could have come from a third party, and pointed out that the basis for Khemka’s ‘suppositions’ was flawed because Onkareshwar properties had not even cashed the cheque yet. Khemka admitted that the truth would only come out via a criminal investigation, but rejected the use of the term ‘supposition’ by Thapar, insisting that they were ‘probable inferences’ based on the evidence he had in his possession. “If the money for Vadra’s company was given by a third party, why was it not mentioned as so?”, he asked. “It requires courage and truth to call a bluff a bluff when it happens at the highest levels”, he added.

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Was Ashok Khemka's report on Robert Vadra based on real evidence?

Was IAS officer Ashok Khemka’s report on Robert Vadra’s land transactions a calculated act of vendetta designed to spearhead his own career, or are the concerns he raised valid ones that merit further investigation at the highest levels?

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