The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, tabled in the Haryana Assembly on Wednesday, has held the previous Congress Government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda guilty of showing “undue favours” to Robert Vadra in his multi-million rupee controversial land deal with realty giant DlF. Though the report did not name Vadra, his company, Skylight Hospitality, was named.
The CAG report stated that Vadra’s company, Skylight Hospitality, made a huge profit from the sale of a plot to DlF after obtaining the change of land use for the same from the then Hooda Government. Skylight Hospitality sold 3.5 acre of land in Manesar in Gurgaon district to DlF for Rs58 crore in 2008. The land had, however, cost Vadra’s company around Rs15 crore. The CAG in its report stated: “The possibility of extending undue benefit to Skylight cannot be ruled out.”
The controversial land deal had become a national issue and the BJP had accused the then Congress Government of shielding Vadra. The CAG came down heavily on the Town and Country Planning Department. “The department neither at the time of granting in-principle approval nor at the time of formal approval for transfer of licences ensured that net profit beyond 15 per cent of the total cost accrues to public exchequer…This enabled the developers to earn huge profits merely by selling the land while the Government had to forego sizeable amount,” the CAG report said.
Pointing out irregularities in the development of internal circulating and approach road, the CAG observed that as per existing practice the commercial sites should be approachable through internal roads. In the case of Skylight Hospitality Private limited, the site was not approachable, the CAG noted. The department, however, decided (in March 2008) to waive this condition on the ground that the approach roads would be taken by the licensee through the plotted colony of Onkarshewar Properties Pvt ltd and Mark Buildtech Private limited in collaboration with Vatika land base.
The report said, “It was observed that the land was purchased by Skylight on February 12, 2008 when the work of consolidation was in progress and was sold on September 18, 2012 when consolidation was re-notified in August 2011. As per decision of Director General, Department of Consolidation, the mutation of land transaction between two companies was cancelled on October 15, 2012 as the permission of consolidation officer was not taken.
However, the report submitted in December 2012, by a three-member committee of the State Government to look into cancellation order, the order of cancellation of mutation was not implemented.” Elaborating about the undue favours given to the company, the CAG stated, “In respect of Sector 83 Gurgaon, 9 firms had applied for 14 commercial licences as on March 2008. In case of Skylight, it was mentioned that the applicant has not submitted any documents in respect of financial capacity, except the name of the Director alone. It could be seen that no uniform criteria/benchmarks were applied for assessment of financial adequacy with the result that appraisal was adhoc and varied from cases to case.”
“It was not clear as to why such distinction had been made in respect of Skylight Hospitality,” said CAG. The CAG has also named four other companies who made huge profits in selling their land. These included Sun Star Builders Pvt ltd, Witness Construction Pvt ltd, Botil Oil Tools Private limited, Uppal Housing Pvt ltd and Mark Buildtech Pvt. ltd
Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka had ordered the scrapping of the land deal, saying that it was illegal. Khemka had also marked a probe into all land deals of Vadra and his companies since 2005. But the then Hooda Government gave Vadra a clean chit and instead chargesheeted Khemka for his actions.