SC refuses to entertain plea for CBI probe into Robert Vadra land deals
The court asked petitioner M.L. Sharma to approach Punjab and Haryana high court with his plea
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged illegal land deals involving Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra.
A bench headed by chief justice H.L. Dattu asked petitioner M.L. Sharma to approach Punjab and Haryana high court with his plea.
Earlier, the Delhi high court on 16 September had refused to entertain Sharma’s plea for an investigation by CBI as it was beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the court.
A draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India last year said that Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality Pvt. Ltd was allowed to develop a commercial colony in Haryana at a time when it had just ₹ 1 lakh on its books. It subsequently sold the plaot of land, which it acquired for ₹ 7.5 crore and on which it spent ₹ 6.84 crore to DLF Universal for ₹ 58 crore. The government auditor’s report, cited by the media, said a contract between Skylight and the Haryana government said the former would retain just ₹ 2.15 crore of the profit and pass on the rest to the state.
The deal happened under the watch of Haryana’s then Congress government.
Separately, bureaucrat Ashok Khemka, who tried to block the deal involving 3.5 acres of land and was transferred for his troubles, has alleged that the ₹ 7.5 crore Vadra used to buy the land was not his own money.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which now rules Haryana, made this an issue during the general elections in mid-2014 and the Haryana elections later in the year.
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