While Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said here on Sunday that the criminal case registered against Robert Vadra, son-in-law of United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and real estate firm DLF will be investigated and the guilty punished, the Congress termed the case “false and fabricated”.
Mr. Khattar said his government has been fighting against corruption since his first day in office and several cases were at different stages of investigation before the Central Bureau of Investigation, courts and other agencies.
Dhingra Commission
To a question on why no action was taken on the report of the Dhingra Commission, set up in May 2015, to probe the Vadra-DLF land deal, Mr. Khattar said the Punjab and Haryana High Court had stayed it and the matter was now before the Supreme Court.
The Haryana Chief Minister said the Dhingra Commission report will be made public after the go-ahead from the court.
An FIR was registered against former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Mr. Vadra on September 1 in connection with a decade-old Shikohpur village land deal between Mr. Vadra’s company and DLF.
Case registered
The case was registered at Khedki Daula police station on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery under the Indian Penal Code and Section 13, Prevention of Corruption Act, following a complaint by social activist Surender Sharma.
DLF company and Onkareshwar Properties are also named in the FIR.
In a statement released late on September 2, Mr. Vadra said, “Election season, increase in oil prices, so let us divert people’s issues with my decade-old issue. What’s new?”
‘A corrupt act’
IAS Ashok Khemka, the then Director General of Land Consolidation and Land Records who had cancelled the mutation of the ₹58-crore land deal between DLF and Mr. Vadra’s company, tweeted, “Dhingra Commission of Inquiry was wastage of time and public money. What a private man could do now, the State Govt could have done 3 years earlier. They had access to official records and my reports of 21 May, 2013 and 12 Feb., 2015. Shielding the corrupt is also a corrupt act [sic]”.
Congress statement
In a statement, Congress’s communication head Randeep Surjewala said, “Justice Dhingra Commission was asked to look into the purchase of Shikohpur land measuring 3.5 acres by Skylight Hospitality Private Limited of Mr. Vadra and grant of licence to it by the then Congress government… The former Haryana Chief Minister and the others have challenged this report in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. On November 23, the High Court stayed the report and the matter is now fixed for final arguments.”
“Knowing that the illegalities and malice of dirty tricks department of BJP will not be served as the majesty of law will prevail, they are seeking to pre-empt the judgment of the High Court by registering an FIR after nearly five years without any basis or foundation,” Mr. Surjewala added.