The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a fresh notice to a company linked to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra.
The notice was issued in connection with ED’s probe into a land grab case in Rajasthan's Bikaner.
The fresh summons for production of documents came as the ED dismissed as "unauthorised" the appearance of a lawyer in response to the notices first sent last month.
A lawyer claiming to represent M/s Skylight Hospitality had last week appeared before ED in response to its notice. However, he was not carrying any authorisation letter from the company following which the ED decided to issue the second notice.
The company has been given two weeks’ time to furnish financial statements and other documents before the Investigating Officer.
On May 6, the ED searched eight locations in Rajasthan in connection with a money laundering probe arising out of the land grab case. The case is related to the purchase of 275 bigha land by the company of Vadra in Kolayat of Bikaner district.
The ED registered a money laundering case in connection with the case based on 18 FIRs filed by Rajasthan Police in August last year, after the local tehsildar filed a complaint.
The ED action came after it suspected that money was laundered in connection with the case of transfer of government land in 34 villages of Bikaner, to be used for expanding the army's firing range in the area, to private persons using "forged and fabricated documents".
In January last year, Rajasthan government had cancelled the mutation (transfer of land) of 374.44 hectares of land following a Land Department probe. Though the ED did not name Vadra or his company in the FIR, it had taken note of media reports that claimed that a firm linked to Vadra had also purchased a portion of these lands.
Congress targets judge probing deal
Cornered on Robert Vadra’s land deals, the Congress has launched a two-pronged counter-attack by questioning the integrity of the retired judge probing it, DHNS reports from New Delhi. The Congress dubbed the Justice S N Dhingra Commission, probing the dodgy land deals in Gurgaon in Haryana, as a “political tool for malicious witch-hunt” by the BJP government in the state.
The party’s chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala also accused Justice Dhingra of “compromising” his position as an independent and neutral player by accepting favours from the Haryana government for a trust headed by him Surjewala claimed that Justice Dhingra himself proposed to expand the ambit of the terms of reference of the commission headed by him, an action “unheard of in Independent India”. He also questioned Justice Dhingra’s “sudden decision” to seek extension for the commission to examine further documents related to some “benami land deals”.
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