The Enforcement Directorate filed a chargesheet against businessman Robert Vadra in connection with a money laundering case on Thursday. The probe agency also attached 43 immovable properties worth Rs 37.64 crore linked to the businessman and his entities. The ED prosecution complaint also listed the names of 10 other other individuals and firms linked to the Shikohpur land deal case.
This is the first time that any probe agency has filed a prosecution complaint against Vadra in a criminal case. According to a PTI report quoting sources, the chargesheet was filed before a Delhi court under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The 56-year-old — who is married to Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — was previously questioned by the federal investigative agency for three consecutive days in April.
Vadra has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and maintains that the case was “political vendetta” against him and his family. The ED is also investigating the businessman in two other cases including one against UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari and a land deal in Rajasthan’s Bikaner.
What is the Shikohpur land deal case?
The probe against Vadra is linked to the land deal in Haryana’s Manesar-Shikohpur (now sector 83) in Gurugram. The deal of February 2008 was done by a company named Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd, where Vadra was a director earlier, as it purchased a 3.5 acre of land in Shikohpur from Onkareshwar Properties at a price of Rs 7.5 crore. A Congress government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda was in power at that time. Four years later, in September 2012, the company sold the land to realty major DLF for Rs 58 crore. The land deal got embroiled in controversy in October 2012 after IAS officer Ashok Khemka, then posted as the director general of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum-Inspector-General of Registration of Haryana, cancelled the mutation of this categorising the transaction as violative of state consolidation act and some related procedures.