The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday rejected businessman Robert Vadra’s petition seeking the quashing of a money-laundering case registered against his firm Sky Light Hospitality, and a stay on his custodial interrogation in the matter related to a controversial land deal in Bikaner. Mr. Vadra is the husband of the All India Congress Committee general-secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The stay granted earlier by the court on the arrest of Mr. Vadra and his mother Maureen Vadra, both of whom are directors of Sky Light Hospitality, will continue for two weeks to allow them to file an appeal in a higher court. They appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2019 in connection with a probe into the case registered against them, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, in 2015.
The ED had registered an enforcement case information report (ECIR) after taking cognisance of first information reports registered by the Rajasthan Police in connection with the deal for 69.55 acres of land in Bikaner district’s Kolayat sub-division, in 2012. It was alleged that Sky Light Hospitality had purchased the land at the rate of ₹1 lakh per hectare in 2010 and sold it in two stages to Allegeny Finlease Private Limited in 2012 at ₹7.41 lakh per hectare.
Sky Light Hospitality is being investigated with the suspicion that it had fraudulently acquired the land which was meant for the rehabilitation of poor villagers. The Rajasthan Police had registered the case against the firm in August 2014, after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power at the Centre.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati pronounced the judgement at the High Court’s principal seat, in Jodhpur. The Bench had in 2019 lifted an earlier order for “no coercive action” against the partners of Sky Light Hospitality, while asking them to cooperate with the ED in the investigation, and directed the continuation of stay on arrest, till further orders.
Mr. Vadra’s counsel K.T.S. Tulsi contended in the court that the ECIR, which was just an inquiry lodged on the basis of a complaint, should be quashed as there was no illegality in the land deal. He also said that there was no need to arrest the partners of the firm if the central probe agency needed to question them.
