Real estate major DlF Group on Tuesday claimed Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s partner Amit Mehta has never been an employee of the Group and only served as a “nominee director”. It also attributed his DlF email id in Vadra’s companies to an “inadvertent” error.
Responding to BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s petition on Monday to the President seeking a probe into Vadra’s six new companies and their DlF link, which this daily published, the company in a statement said: “Amit Mehta is not and has never been an employee of the DlF Group. Mehta only served as a nominee Director on behalf of Skylight Group on the board of Saket Hotel Joint Venture Companies. Disclosures regarding this relationship have been made in all records,” said the company in a statement.
“We wish to categorically state that DlF Group has no knowledge, let alone association, of any kind with the five companies mentioned in your story, including the role of Mehta in those companies,” it said.
The DlF Group claimed Mehta “inadvertently” used his earlier DlF email id in the Form 32 of Vadra’s newly-floated companies.
“DlF has also promptly written to the Registrar of Companies to request them to rectify their records, which may have inadvertently attached a generic DlF email ID erroneously with the name of Amit Mehta. Just for your kind information, as per unique DIN in form DIN-I of Mehta, the correct Email id of Mehta is amitartex@gmail.com. Trust that we have clarified the issue completely,” claimed DlF.
Swamy alleged that Vadra had floated six new companies during the same time in mid 2012, when the Urban Development Ministry dubiously allotted 23 acres of prime land behind Rashtrapati Bhavan to the DlF Group. The BJP leader complained to President Pranab Mukherjee to direct a CVC and CBI probe into Vadra’s quid-pro-quo with DlF.
The company said the reports “further allege that Vadra used his political influence to get a 23-acre property near Rashtrapati Bhavan allotted to DlF for Rs65 crore. This is misconceived, a figment of imagination and nothing can be farther from the truth”.