New Delhi: After being questioned for hours a day before, Robert Vadra returned to the Enforcement Directorate for a second time Thursday to be interrogated in a money laundering case.
Vadra, the brother-in-law of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, was on Wednesday questioned for five-and-a half hours by the ED in its money laundering probe into alleged possession of illegal foreign assets, days after he was directed by a city court to appear before the central probe agency.
Vadra was accompanied by wife Priyanka Gandhi in a white Toyota Land Cruiser, and dropped him outside the ED’s office in Jamnagar House, a move seen as sending a political message to Congress’s opponents ahead of Lok Sabha polls.
Vadra left the office at about 9:40pm alone in the same car in which Priyanka had dropped him.
His lawyer said Vadra has replied to every question that was put to him.
“All charges against him are wrong. We will cooperate with the agency 100 per cent. He will come whenever he is called,” Suman Jyoti Khaitan, his lawyer told the mediapersons waiting outside the ED office.
Shortly after dropping her husband, Priyanka took charge as AICC general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh East, after her formal induction into the Congress party on January 23.
“He is my husband, he is my family…I support my family,” Priyanka said in a show of support to Vadra, who returned from London earlier in the day.
On the day of Priyanka’s appointment, Vadra had sent an emotional message to her. “Congratulations P… always by your side in every phase of your life. Give it your best,” Vadra said in a Facebook post.
This is the first time that Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, is appearing before any probe agency in connection with alleged criminal charges of dubious financial dealings.
The charge
The ED case against Vadra relates to allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a London-based property located at 12, Bryanston Square worth 1.9 million GBP (British pounds), which is allegedly owned by him.
The agency had also told the court that it has received information about various new properties in London which belongs to Vadra, including two houses of five and four million each, six other flats and more properties.
The ED had carried out raids in the case in December last year and grilled his aide Manoj Arora, an employee of a firm linked to Vadra, Skylight Hospitality LLP.
The agency had told the court that it filed a PMLA case against Arora after his role cropped up during the probe of another case by the Income Tax Department under the 2015 anti-blackmoney legislation against absconding Bhandari.
It had alleged that the London-based property was bought by Bhandari for 1.9 million GBP and sold in 2010 for the same amount despite incurring additional expenses of approximately 65,900 GBP on its renovation.
“This gives credence to the fact that Bhandari was not the actual owner of the property but it was beneficially owned by Vadra who was incurring expenditure on the renovation of this property,” the ED had claimed before the court.
Arora was a key person in the case and he was aware of Vadra’s overseas undeclared assets, ED had alleged.
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