New Delhi: Enforcement Directorate probes Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Robert Vadra land deals

New Delhi : Purchase of three plots of land in Haryana in 2005-06 by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra from a real estate agent is being probed along with a land deal made by his wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the ED claimed in a recently filed money laundering case charge sheet. The federal agency filed the charge sheet (prosecution complaint) in November before a Delhi court against UAE-based NRI businessman C C Thampi, who is allegedly linked to Robert Vadra, and Sumit Chadha, a relative of alleged middleman Sanjay Bhandari.

Though Robert Vadra and Priyanka Gandhi, a Congress general secretary, have not been named as accused in the charge sheet, this is the first time that Priyanka Gandhi has been named in a charge sheet filed before a court. A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Delhi took cognisance of this charge sheet on December 22 and listed the matter for next hearing on January 29, 2024.

Bhandari fled to the UK in 2016 and the British government approved his extradition to India in January this year acting on a legal request made by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The the two federal agencies are probing charges of money laundering and tax evasion against the alleged middleman for holding alleged undisclosed assets abroad.

The ED stated in the charge sheet that it came across the land purchase and sale transactions of the Vadras after it registered a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) case against 67-year-old Thampi in 2015.