The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday again questioned Robert Vadra in a 2008 Haryana land deal-linked alleged money laundering case linked to real estate company DLF. Terming the agency’s move to summon him as “political vendetta”, Vadra said he has spent hours earlier to take questions from the ED (in separate money laundering cases) as well as share thousands of pages of documents but still the central agency was ‘raking’ cases against him.

“This is nothing but political vendetta. Whenever I speak for the minorities, they try to stop me, crush us... They tried to stop Rahul (Gandhi) in Parliament too. This is political vendetta and misuse of central agencies. I will cooperate with them like in the past,” the 56-year-old told the media as he walked two miles from his residence at Sujan Singh Park in central Delhi to the ED headquarters on the APJ Abdul Kalam Road here. Vadra entered the ED office at 11am along with his lawyer while his security team stayed out.

Officials said the ED recorded his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for about two hours.

The questioning session is expected to continue. Coming out of the ED office for lunch around 1.30pm, Vadra told reporters that while he was ready to cooperate with the investigation but there needed to be a closure. “How can you be talking about something that happened in 2007?” he said.

Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, was first summoned in this case on April 8 but he sought another date. The probe against Vadra is linked to a land deal with DLF in Haryana’s Manesar-Shikohpur (now Sector 83) in Gurugram. The land deal of February 2008 was done by a company named Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd, where Vadra was a director earlier on, as it purchased a 3.5 acre land in Shikohpur from a firm named Onkareshwar Properties at a price of Rs 7.5 crore. A Congress government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda was in power in Haryana at that time. Vadra’s wife Priyanka Gandhi was also a director in his company.  Four years later, in September 2012, the company sold this 3.53 acre land to realty major DLF for Rs 58 crore.

The land deal courted controversy in October 2012 after Haryana cadre IAS officer Ashok Khemka, then posted as Director General of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum- Inspector General of Registration, cancelled the land mutation, categorising the transaction as violative of State Consolidation Act and related procedures.  The Haryana Police filed an FIR regarding this deal in 2018.

Vadra has been questioned multiple times by the federal probe agency in two money laundering cases so far.  The ED had filed a charge sheet in December 2023 against UAE-based NRI businessman CC Thampi, who is allegedly linked to Vadra, and Sumit Chadha, a relative of UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari, saying it was investigating purchase of three plots of land in Haryana during 2005-06 by Vadra from a real estate agent along with a land deal made by his wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Neither Vadra nor Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were named as accused in the charge sheet.

Thampi, the ED had said, had purchased about 486 acres between 2005 and 2008 in Amirpur village in Faridabad in Haryana through HL Pahwa, a real estate agent based in Delhi-NCR. “It is imperative to mention that Vadra also purchased three pieces of land measuring 334 kanals (40.08 acres) in Amirpur from HL Pahwa in 2005-2006 and sold it to Pahwa again in December 2010,” the charge sheet said. 

“Further, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also purchased agricultural land measuring 40 kanal (05 acres) in village Amirpur, district Faridabad, Haryana, from Pahwa in April 2006 and sold it again to Pahwa in February 2010.

“Pahwa was receiving cash out of the books for the purpose of acquisition of land.  It was also noticed that Vadra did not pay the entire consideration to Pahwa. The investigation in this regard is still going on,” the ED had said.