Rajasthan HC Orders Robert Vadra, Mother To Appear Before ED On 12 February In Bikaner Land Scam

The Rajasthan High Court (HC) has asked Robert Vadra and his mother Maureen Vadra to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Bikaner land scam case, Bhaskar has reported.

The ED had issued Vadra a summon in the last week of November (2018) which was the third summon in the case. Vadra had ignored the previous two ED summons in the case.

The Rajasthan HC bench was headed by Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati which was hearing the plea filed by Vadra’s company Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd. With the on-going investigation in preview, the court has ordered all stakeholders in the case to be present before the ED and co-operate with the department in the case.

The case, filed by the ED in 2015 relates to a probe into the purchase of 275 bigha land in Kolayat area of Bikaner. It suspects that money was laundered by people who purchased land at cheap rates using forged documents. The agency had filed the case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

"Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd had purchased 69.55-hectare land for Rs 72 lakh, sold it to Allegeny finlease Pv Ltd for Rs 5.15 crore and earned huge profit of Rs 4.43 crore. Allegeny finlease Pvt Ltd as a company is not involved in any real business activity and many of its shareholders were found to be non-existent during the investigation," an earlier release by the ED said.

The 12 February date has been mutually fixed by the lawyers of the two parties, with Robert and Maureen both having to be present before the ED in their capacity as the directors of Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd.