New Delhi: Robert Vadra on Friday moved a Delhi court seeking anticipatory bail in a money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate. A lawyer from the prosecution team confirmed that Vadra has sought anticipatory bail in the case in which his close aide Manoj Arora was granted interim protection from arrest till February 6 by the court.
The case relates to allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a London-based property — located at 12, Bryanston Square — worth 1.9 million pounds, which is allegedly owned by Vadra, the brother-in-law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Vadra’s anticipatory bail application is likely to be heard by the court on Saturday.
On January 19, the ED had told the court that Arora was cooperating in the probe. Arora had earlier alleged before the court that the case was foisted on him by the NDA government out of “political vendetta”. However, the ED had refuted the allegations and demanded whether no “authority should investigate a political heavyweight because that will be called political vendetta?”
The agency had told the court that it registered the money laundering case against Arora after his role surfaced in another case filed by the Income Tax Department against absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari. The charge is that the London-based property was bought by Bhandari for GBP 1.9 million and sold in 2010 for the same amount, despite incurring additional expenses of approximately GBP 65,900 on its renovation.
“This gives credence to the fact that Bhandari was not the actual owner of the property but it was owned by Vadra who was incurring expenditure on the renovation of this property,” the ED had told the court. Arora, an employee of Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality LLP, was a key person in the case and he was aware of the latter’s overseas undeclared assets and was instrumental in arranging funds, ED had alleged.