HC tells officials of Vadra-linked firm to appear before ED

Rajasthan High Court has directed officials of Skylight Hospitality, a firm linked to Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra, to appear before Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in connection with a controversial land deal in Bikaner.
Justice P K Lohra gave the order while hearing the pleas challenging the summons issued by the ED to the company and its officials earlier this year under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with purchase of 275 bigha land in Kolayat area of Bikaner in Rajasthan.
Refusing to grant relief to the petitioners, the court said they will have to appear before ED between January 4 and January 6 but allowed them assistance of lawyers "with reasonable distance" during questioning.

As the issue of Vadra's controversial land deals haunted the Congress again, the party alleged that summoning of Skylight and its officials by ED was part of "vendetta and witch-hunt that BJP continues to unleash guided by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi".
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said neither "Vadra nor Skylight, nor anyone associated with him is an accused in the case" and that ED has not been able to find anything against them.
"Whenever there is been an attack on BJP over their misdoings, they just say 'this has happened', and 'that had happened'. They are enquiring about it for so many years why are they not able to find anything?," senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

Vadra has denied any wrongdoing in the matter.

However, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal, who hails from Rajasthan, said, the law will take its course.
"I just want to say if a common man would have liked to buy those lands, I am sure they wouldn't be allowed to do so," the minister said.
ED's counsel Rajeev Awasthiopposed the pleas against the summonses in the high court saying the petitioners are supposed to appear before the agency instead of challenging the same in the court.
The central probe agency had registered a criminal case
of money laundering in this matter last year on the basis of FIRs filed by the state police after the local tehsildar had made a complaint.

The ED has not mentioned the name of Vadra or any company linked to him in the FIR but it named some state government officials and some "land mafia".
While filing the case, it had also taken cognisance of reports that had referred to a firm allegedly linked to Vadra which had purchased some of these Bikaner located lands.
Rajasthan government had in January last year cancelled the mutation (transfer of land) of 374.44 hectares of land, after the land department claimed to have found that the allotments were made in the names of "illegal private persons".
The tehsildar had said in the complaint that the government land in 34 villages of Bikaner, to be used for expanding the army's firing range in the area, was "grabbed" by the land mafia by preparing "forged and fabricated documents" in connivance with government officials.

ED suspects that huge amounts of money was laundered in this case by people buying land at cheap rates through forged documents.
The state government had, while cancelling the mutations, said these were not issued by the Commissioner, Colonisation, Bikaner.
The state police had also filed charge sheets in 18 cases in a court in Kolayat last year.