New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summo-ned Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in connection with its money laundering pr-obe into an alleged land scam in election-bound Rajasthan’s Bikaner.
This is the second time this month that the ED has issued summons to Mr Vadra in the matter. Sources clarified that Mr Vadra did not appear before the IO when the first summons was issued earlier in November.
According to sources, Mr Vadra has been asked to appear before the investigating officer (IO) of the case next week for recording his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Mr Vadra had earlier denied any wrongdoing in the land deal and the Congress had claimed that the case was a result of “political vendetta”.
Voting to elect a new 200-member Assembly in Rajasthan is going to take place on December 7. The ED summons against Mr Vadra are likely to give ammunition to the ruling BJP which is facing a strong challenge from the Congress.
The ED has registered a criminal case in connection with the deal in 2015, taking cognisance of FIRs and chargesheets filed by the Rajasthan police after the local tehsildar of Bikaner complained about alleged forgery in the allotment of land in the area, considered sensitive due to its proximity to the Indo-Pak border.
The agency is also probing the role of a steel firm that gave loans to a company that bought the land from firms allegedly linked to Mr Vadra at an inflated price, sources said.
The Rajasthan government had in January, 2015 cancelled the mutation (transfer of land) of 374.44 hectares of land, after the land department found that the allotments were made in the names of illegal private persons.
Sources said that the agency suspects that a huge amount of money was laundered in this case by people buying land at cheap rate through forged documents. The state government, while cancelling the mutations, had said that these were not issued by the commissioner, colonisation, Bikaner.
The ED has already attached assets worth Rs 1.18 crore of government officials and others in connection with the case under the provisions of the PMLA.
