New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has named Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for the first time in a prosecution complaint filed before a Delhi court in a money laundering case linked to alleged middleman and absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.
The agency has not listed her as an accused, but referred to her with respect to an alleged transaction.
Priyanka was named in a supplementary prosecution complaint in the case against UAE-based NRI businessman Cheruvathur Chakutty Thampi and UK national Sumit Chadha in a PMLA court in Delhi on 21 November. The court on 22 December took cognisance of the document, parts of which have been accessed by ThePrint.
The ED has alleged that Priyanka, her husband Robert Vadra and Thampi bought pieces of land in Amipur village of Faridabad district in Haryana from a common real estate agent — H.L. Pahwa. The agency claimed that Priyanka bought five acres of agricultural land in April 2006, but sold it back to Pahwa nearly four years later in 2010.
This complaint also mentions that Robert Vadra stayed at and renovated a London property that has been declared as “proceeds of crime” in the case.
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‘Long relationship between Thampi and Robert Vadra’
The federal probe agency has claimed a “long and thick relationship” between Thampi and Robert Vadra that goes beyond “personal bond” to “common and similar business interests”.
The ED said that Thampi, in his statement given in 2019, revealed that he was introduced to Robert Vadra by Sonia Gandhi’s personal assistant P.P. Madhavan, and met him on various occasions when he used to visit the UAE in a period of acquaintance lasting longer than a decade.
His statement also mentioned meetings with Vadra in the lounge of Hotel Taj Man Singh and other restaurants in Delhi.
The ED claimed that between 2005 and 2008, Thampi bought 468 acres in the same Faridabad village where Robert Vadra purchased three pieces of land amounting to 40.08 acres in 2005-2006.
The agency claimed that the Vadras sold their land back to Pahwa in 2010 and that the land deals were kept off the books.
“It is imperative to mention that Robert Vadra also purchased three pieces of land measuring 334 kanals (40.08 acres) in Amipur from [the same] H.L. Pahwa from 2005-2006 and sold the same land to Pahwa in December 2010. Further, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, wife of Robert Vadra, also purchased agricultural land measuring 40 kanal (5 acres) in village Amipur from Pahwa in April 2006 and sold the same land to Pahwa in February 2010,” ED said in its prosecution complaint.
London property
In the complaint, the ED also quoted a statement by Thampi to claim that Robert Vadra stayed three-four times at 12, Bryanston Square, in London, which has been declared as “proceeds of crime” by the probe agency.
The ED had earlier claimed that the property was bought by fugitive arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari’s company Santech International FZC, which purchased the property from a company named Vertex in 2009 for £1.9 million.
Renovation work was carried out at the property in 2010, at the cost of £66,000, which was paid for by Robert Vadra, the ED claimed, adding that the same property was resold to Vertex at the same value the same year.
Then, on 18 June, 2010, a Thampi-owned company SkyLite Investment FZE purchased the mansion at exactly the same price, raising suspicion on the nature of the transaction because it did not take into account the cost incurred on renovation, the ED had said in a court submission.
“This property was purchased in 2009 by Sanjay Bhandari for £1.9 million and sold in June 2010 for the same amount. Despite incurring additional expenses of £65,900 on renovation of this property, it was sold for £1.9 million,” the ED had said in a submission to a special court in 2018.
Interestingly, the ED claimed that Vertex rerouted the £1.9 million it got from Thampi’s SkyLite Investment FZE back to Santech’s account.
The agency had in 2018 claimed that Robert Vadra was the “actual owner” of the property and not Bhandari or Thampi who were just managing transactions and operations on his behalf.
“This [sale and resale at same amount] gives credence to the fact that Sanjay Bhandari was not the actual owner of the property but it was beneficially owned by Robert Vadra, who was incurring expenditure for the renovation of this property,” the ED said in the court submission.
“From various emails exchanged between Sumit Chadha (a close relative of Sanjay Bhandari in UK), Robert Vadra and Manoj Arora, personal assistant to Robert Vadra, it emerges that Vadra was beneficially controlling the aforesaid property and not only executing renovation work of this property through Sumit Chadha but also arranging for the funds for the same,” the ED said in its 2018 submission.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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