Cong tosses panel report on Haryana land deals

Cong alleges conspiracy, alleges retired judge heading the inquiry accepted favours

The Congress on Wednesday attacked retired judge S N Dhingra who probed controversial land deals in Haryana, including that of Robert Vadra, son-in-law of party president Sonia Gandhi, saying he took favours from the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government in the state.

Hours after Dhingra, a former judge of the Delhi high court, gave his report to Haryana chief minister saying he had found irregularities and had named certain officials and private individuals, the Congress defended both Vadra and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who allegedly helped Vadra.

“There is no evidence against Vadra or Hooda. While the former was never summoned by the Dhingra commission, there was no complaint against the latter,” said Congress communication department chief Randeep Singh Surjewala.

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party at the Centre as well as in Haryana, of hatching a conspiracy to defame the Congress and Vadra, Surjewala said Khattar flouted rules to get a road built in front of Dhingra’s trust.

He also said the former judge had accepted a land grant from a private party when he was probing controversial land deals in the state. “Dhingra compromised his position by accepting these favours,” said Surjewala, a lawmaker in Haryana assembly and a former minister in the Hooda government.

Justice Dhingra, who retired from the Delhi High Court, was given the job last year to probe around 250 allocations of plots when Hooda was the chief minister. He submitted the report to Khattar on Wednesday.

"I have brought the irregularities to light and the people behind it?if there were no irregularities I would have submitted a one sentence and not a 182 page report...I have named officials as well as private individuals in my report," Justice Dhingra said without taking any names.

Hitting back, Hooda, who had refused to depose before the panel, demanded a CBI probe into the matter.

The BJP said it looked like Vadra was involved in the land deals and said it would study the report.

The controversy around Vadra is based on a 3.5-acre plot in Gurgaon that he bought in 2008 for Rs 7.5 crore and sold just months later for Rs 58 crore to real estate giant DLF, which has denied any wrongdoing.

Surjewala in turn claimed that the Dhingra commission had given a clean chit to Vadra's firm Skylight Hospitality against which a CAG report had pointed out that the company did not submit documents on financial adequacy and was still granted a licence.

That license, the Congress said, has not been renewed by the Khattar government as the opposition party built up a case against the panel report.