In a setback to the Congress, the Haryana government has authorised the state police to probe alleged wrongdoing in a land deal involving former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra.

Confirming the government's approval, Gurgaon Police Commissioner KK Rao said: "We have got the approval for a probe and the investigation is underway."

On September 1, a first information report was registered against the two under the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code in a case pertaining to the purchase and resale of a land parcel in 2008.

The complainant alleged that Vadra's Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd purchased 3.5 acre of land in Gurgaon's Sector 83 from Onkareshwar Properties Pvt Ltd for Rs 7.5 crore in 2008, when Hooda, then the CM, headed the town planning department. Later, Skylight sold the land to realty major DLF for Rs 58 crore, after procuring a commercial licence for development of a colony with Hooda's influence, it is alleged.

Other than Hooda and Vadra's Skylight Hospitality, the FIR also names DLF and Onkareshwar Properties.

The complainant also alleged that 350 acre of land was allotted to DLF at Wazirabad in Gurgaon in violation of rules, which resulted in a windfall of Rs 5,000 crore to the realty major.

While Vadra alleged that the FIR was filed to deflect public attention from "real issues", Hooda claimed that it was registered because of "political malice".

On Friday, in a separate, money-laundering case against Hooda and some others, the Enforcement Directorate attached assets worth more than Rs 42 crore of ABW Infrastructure Limited. The charge is that Haryana government functionaries and bureaucrats connived with private parties to force land deals that resulted in a loss of Rs 1,500 crore to the state farmers.

The Directorate said immovable properties of ABWIL Gurgaon and its group companies were provisionally attached as part of the latest order issued under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

"It is alleged that farmers and landowners in villages of Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnaula (aka Nakhrola) were compelled to sell roughly 400 acres of 688 acres of their ancestral property to private persons at throwaway prices under the threat of acquisition by the government between August 27, 2004 and August 24, 2007," the ED said.

The agency had filed an anti-money laundering case in the alleged land scam in September, 2016 on the basis of an FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The ED had last year carried out raids while investigating the case.