Court refuses to give Vadra relief from ED interrogation

NEW DELHI: A special court on Monday refused to stay the interrogation of Robert Vadra, accused in a money laundering case, and directed him to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday. Vadra is facing probe in cases relating to purchase of alleged illegal assets abroad and an alleged land scam in Bikaner, Rajasthan.

Vadra, through his counsel KTS Tulsi, sought copies of the documents seized by ED and a stay on the interrogation till the documents were handed over. ED's counsels D P Singh and Nitesh Rana, however, opposed the plea of stay on Vadra's interrogation saying the documents (in the form of a hard drive) had already been supplied.

"We're not asking for a stay on the investigation. I'm only saying interrogation may wait (delivery of) documents," Tulsi told special CBI judge Arvind Kumar. The senior advocate added that the documents in one of the hard drives supplied to Vadra were not opening.

Singh stressed that the documents, which could be handed over, have to be the ones seized from Vadra and not anybody else. "Ready to give that. It is in electronic form," he said.

Tulsi, on the other hand, pointed at the "urgency" being shown by the investigation agency instead of rectifying the issue related to the hard drive. "Urgency is that he's liable to tamper with evidence," Singh said.

To Tulsi's statement that ED's actions were politically motivated and that it was only interested in a political campaign, the ED counsel said, "We're not political. There's no agenda."

The court also asked for the hard drive to be brought and tried to be opened in open court. The defense counsels tried to open it but was unsuccessful. An ED officer, who was present during the proceedings, connected the hard drive to another laptop and said that issued was due to different operating systems.

Advocate Manu Mishra, who also appeared for the ED, said the defense was using Macbook and the documents could only open on Microsoft Word, which was not available on the laptop.

After observing the submissions and the struggle between both the parties to open the files in the hard drive, the court directed Vadra to join investigation for five days - a period during which the ED will supply to him the relevant documents.