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DLF-Robert Vadra controversy: A news round-up

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Haryana rejects land reforms; Haryana Chief Minister denies wrongdoing; lawyer rubbishes Khemka report

In a story based on the report of the officer who was transferred for asking questions on the Vadra-DLF deal, Ashok Khemka, The Hindu said that the officer has alleged that the Haryana government rejected key reforms to curb ‘benami’ deals. The Hindi word ‘benami’ simply means ‘nameless.’

“In chapters four and five of his reply to the committee, Mr. Khemka says: ‘A small but powerful lobby of politicians and bureaucrats having [a] vested interest in panchayat lands succeeded in stifling a good legislative reform that would have helped prevent misappropriation of panchayat lands in the future.’ The committee, set up by the Haryana government to look into Khemka’s October allegations was asked to “look into this issue too, but chose to ignore it completely,” the newspaper report says.

“During his 80-day tenure in the land records office, Mr. Khemka had unearthed several land scams—particularly in Gurgaon and Faridabad—in which valuable panchayat and forest lands were being usurped by powerful land sharks with the apparent complicity of the authorities by misusing the provision of the Consolidation Act. Citing examples, his reply lists several modes of abuse of consolidation proceedings with the aim of grabbing panchayat lands. Common hilly and forest lands in the Aravalis are getting fragmented and privatized in the name of consolidation, and panchayat land in ‘prime properties of Faridabad was partitioned to favour a few VVIPs,’ he notes,” the report adds.

Meanwhile, Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that his government had not “lent any support to any individual or company on illegal grounds” according to a report in the Hindustan Times. State chief secretary Pradeep Kumar Chaudhery told the newspaper that the state government would examine Khemka’s reply. “We want to be fair to him and also be responsible in coming to a conclusion on the findings drawn by the committee.”, the report went on to say.

And lawyer K.T.S. Tulsi dismissed as “high on rhetoric and low on facts” IAS officer Ashok Khemka’s “voluminous reply,” the Press Trust of India said in a report.

“Haryana minister Randeep Singh Surjewalaalso sought to reject Khemka’s reply terming it ‘cacophony of allegations and sensationalisation by vested interests’,” the report further said.

11 August 2013

Khemka says he acted in public interest

The Hindu, again quoting Khemka’s report, has said that according to the bureaucrat, he acted against Vadra after being transferred from his position only so that he would not betray public trust. Khemka was director-general, Land Holdings and Land Records, and Inspector-General of Registration, Haryana, until he was transferred soon after he started investigating the deal.

“In his detailed reply to these allegations, Mr. Khemka has said that ‘leaving charge without passing these orders would have been an act of cowardice and betrayal of public trust…. And to abdicate the responsibility just because VVIPs are involved in the sham transaction would amount to dereliction of duty’,” the newspaper report says.

“Mr. Khemka’s repeated queries, asking the committee to provide him with any representation or appeal that might have been received from Mr. Vadra or his company, Skylight Hospitality, DLF Universal Ltd or Onkareshwar Properties against the cancellation of their land mutation, met with no response. He notes: ‘When Mr. Vadra was not ostensibly aggrieved with the inquiry, why and how are some functionaries in the state government aggrieved instead? Is the same yardstick applied for an ordinary citizen?’,” it goes on to say.

10 August 2013

Vadra used “falsified documents”

The Hindu, citing an investigation report, said that Vadra used “falsified documents” and “sham transactions” to “collect premium on land deals.”

“Ashok Khemka, the Haryana IAS officer who cancelled a land deal mutation between Robert Vadra and real estate giant DLF Universal Ltd last October, has told the Haryana government that Mr. Vadra falsified documents and executed a series of sham transactions for 3.53 acres land in Shikohpur village of Gurgaon, thereby pocketing a hefty premium on a commercial colony license through money that he could account for,” the newspaper report said. “He has made these assertions in a 100-page reply to a report of a three-member enquiry committee set up by the Haryana government last October to look into the Vadra-DLF deal. The committee had indicted Mr. Khemka for cancelling the deal. Mr. Khemka’s reply, submitted on 21 May and accessed by The Hindu, has been put together with the help of publicly available documents and his own findings, after the government stonewalled his efforts to get the official documents concerning the sale, issue and transfer of the license to DLF,” it added.

“Mr. Khemka states that both the sale deed of February 12, 2008—through which Mr. Vadra’s company, Skylight Hospitality, bought the land from Onkareshwar Properties—and the letter of intent for granting a commercial licence to his company issued by the DTCP in March 2008 are sham transactions, executed only to enable Mr. Vadra to collect market premium accruing to him due to state largesse,” the report said.

26 October 2012

“Haryana’s deputy commissioners have found no irregularities in Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s land deals. A panel of four Deputy Commissioners has given Vadra’s deals a clean chit. Four Haryana deputy commissioners conducted inquiries into Vadra’s deals after IAS officer Ashok Khemka’s order, dated October 12,” CNN-IBN said in a report.

In an opinion piece, Firstpost.com has compared Vadra to Nitin Gadkari and has said the former is better off considering no probe was ordered into his business dealings despite the fact that they were all in public domain.

“What is interesting here is that Vadra’s dealings with DLF are also in the public domain and the news was all coming in the newspapers, as Moily put it in Gadkari’s context. That being the case, shouldn’t Moily have ordered a “discreet inquiry” against Vadra as well?,” the piece asks.

“The investigative mills of the government grind slowly – but only when allegations of corruption are levelled against one of its own. When the charges relate to a leader of the principal Opposition party, the same leaden-footed investigative agencies begin to show extraraordinary agility and earnestness of purpose. Witness the alacrity with which a whole battery of investigative agencies and regulators – from the Income Tax Department to the Registrar of Companies – have responded to the ongoing revelations into the web of deceit that BJP president Nitin Gadkari wove. The daily drip-drip of media investigations into Gadkari’s maze of companies and their shadowy transactions with contractors clearly establish a dubious relationship that thrives at the intersection of business and politics, from which both parties derive unjust benefits,” Firstpost.com notes in another opinion piece.

“Haryana’s whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka on Tuesday said the committee set up to probe his order on Robert Vadra-DLF land deal could be an “eyewash”. He also lashed out at his fellow IAS officers, who, according to Khemka, have become “greater than god”,” The Times of India said in a report.

23 October 2012

“After maintaining a brief silence over the probe he launched into a plot of land acquired by a Robert Vadra-owned company, IAS officer Ashok Khemka has said the three-member committee formed by the Haryana government was in violation of a high court order,” Firstpost.com reported.

“According to Khemka, the IAS officials do not have the jurisdiction to probe the orders that were passed by him and was merely a cover up,” the report added.

“The BJP has said that its president, Nitin Gadkari, is willing to accept and cooperate with “any sort of inquiry” into allegations of dubious funding for his business, Purti Power and Sugar. However, the Opposition party says there has to be a level playing field for investigations centred on politicians who are accused of graft. The Congress, it said, is protecting its own,” NDTV news channel said in a report.

“Unlike the Congress, our president has said he is open to any inquiry,” said BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday. She compared this response to the case of Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, Robert Vadra, who has been accused of accepting sweetheart deals from real estate giant DLF. In exchange, the Congress government in Haryana allegedly did favours that promoted DLF’s vast business interests in the state. Mr Vadra, DLF and the Haryana government have refuted the charges. A series of senior cabinet ministers enthusiastically defended Mr Vadra -a point of much criticism among the opposition, the media and the activists headed by Arvind Kejriwal, who has launched a new political party and “outed” Mr Vadra’s DLF connection by releasing documents about their transactions at two different press conferences,” the NDTV report said.

22 October 2012

“Even as the Haryana government formed a three-member committee to probe into the charges levelled by whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka against Robert Vadra-DLF land deal in Gurgaon, the state government has shied away from naming either ‘Vadra’ or ‘DLF’ in the order,” The Times of India said in a report.

“... the government order announcing the setting up of the probe committee just gave the numbers of the two Khemka orders and instructed the panel to conduct an inquiry into it without naming ‘Vadra’ and ‘DLF’,” the report further said.

“The India Against Corruption (IAC) has done a gutsy and commendable job in bringing these findings to the forefront. Vadra’s shady dealings were common gossip in banking circles for years. The media knew it well too. However, it is the IAC that crystallized the outrage, presented some documents and made it a topic of household discussion,” author Chetan Bhagat has said in an opinion piece in The Times of India.

“IAC’s next move, however, demanding an independent investigation into Vadra, is probably going to disappoint them. Firstly, a fair and independent investigation is nearly impossible in India against the Gandhi family, especially when they are in power. Second, and more important, is even if a fair investigation is conducted, there may not be much illegality in what Vadra did (ignoring the charges of fraudulent financial statement, as alleged in some news reports). After all, Vadra made a friend in DLF, and DLF helped Vadra out. That’s all the paper trail may reveal, despite exhaustive investigations. In fact, when powerful people help each other, they are smart enough to keep the paper trail sacrosanct. Expensive lawyers and CAs work hard to ensure the deals have a semblance of legality, whatever the intent. Proving quid-pro-quo is going to be even more difficult. A company like DLF has a vast presence. It needs the government to cooperate with it in hundreds of places. DLF does not need to do a quid pro quo or transactional help. It would rather do favors and make friends in the government. Favours, as the eponymous character in the novel The Godfather would say, that could be utilized at a later date in the form of return favours,” Bhagat goes on to say.

Journalist Manoj Joshi has said in an opinion piece that the “code of collusion” between politicians is “breaking down.”

“Living as we do in the age of reverse swing, we may be upon a new era when the old rules that bound the Indian elite in a culture of complicity may be getting over. This seems to be the takeaway from the charges that are being levelled at Robert Vadra, businessman and son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi,” Joshi says in an opinion piece in Daily Mail.

“The great change that is occurring now promises to transform the Indian polity because at its root is the urge towards democratisation. There is a markedly increased assertion of the underclass - defined by caste, economic level or even gender. There is an aspiration of all Indians to get ahead and improve their station in life and prosper. In this perspective corruption and malfeasance by the political class and the bureaucracy are seen as attempts to hold back people from what is legitimately theirs. The key factors amplifying the trend are the growth of literacy and what are called Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). In India they are manifested by the wide penetration of the mobile phone, newspapers and the television across the country,” he goes on to say.

“Chicanery in land deals was not the only interesting takeaway from the controversy surrounding the association between real estate major DLF and Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. L’affaire Vadra also exposed government highhandedness against officers doing their job,” an opinion piece in The Economic Times says.

“The Haryana government shunted out IAS officer Ashok Khemka for launching a probe into Vadra-DLF deals. He revealed soon after that he has been transferred more than 40 times in 20 years of service. Is that legal? Khemka has challenged the transfer, citing the IAS (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 2010. The rule guarantees a fixed tenure of two years for officers. But here is the catch: the rule is not implemented by half of Indian states. Even in states like Haryana which have technically adopted it, the central government has not monitored its implementation,” the piece goes on to say.

21 October 2012

“The BJP is likely to turn the heat on the government over a string of controversies involving Robert Vadra and Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid,” The Indian Express newspaper said, referring to the winter session of Parliament, which is likely to begin on 21 November.

“Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has threatened to bring a no-confidence motion against the government. Also the DMK, which supports the government from outside, is likely to oppose the FDI in multi-brand retail along with the Samajwadi Party. The monsoon session was washed away with the BJP demanding resignation of the prime minister over the coal block allocation controversy,” the report added.

“Anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal today challenged Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh to persuade Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to answer questions put by India Against Corruption,” Business Standard reported.

“He also asked if either Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister or Rahul Gandhi would come for a public debate. “I request Mr Digvijay to encourage Mrs Gandhi, Prime Minister or Mr Rahul Gandhi to come for a public debate. It could be a place and time of their choice. Let’s question each other and let the public question us on personal and public issues. Is Digvijay ready?” he asked,” the report added.

“The Congress, after being cornered over party president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in law Robert Vadra’s land deals, has now said that it has enough evidence of corruption against families of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and senior BJP leader LK Advani. However, General Secretary Digvijaya Singh said his party will never disclose the details,” CNN-IBN news channel has said.

“The Indian Against Corruption (IAC) activists on Sunday held a protest outside Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s residence in Delhi. Over a hundred activists, who were protesting against the Haryana government for allegedly favouring and facilitating land deals between Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and real estate giant DLF, also clashed with the police,” theZee News channel reports.

“Even after Haryana ordered a probe into the actions of officials, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had insisted that his government had not favoured anyone in land deals. The state also countered Khemka’s claims over his transfer,” the report noted.

“From Bikaner to Haryana, the one common thread in multiple land purchases by Robert Vadra that run into nearly 800 hectares is a name that is, by now, familiar to Bikaner’s property brokers — Mahesh Nagar. This Faridabad resident is the man authorised by Vadra, the son-in-law of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, to register property documents on his behalf, including 20-odd properties purchased between 2009 and 2011 in Bikaner for Rs 2.85 crore,” DNA said in a report.

“While Nagar has remained low-key, documents available with DNA show that the businessman not only held the power of attorney for Vadra-owned companies that purchased 20-odd properties in Kolayat tehsil of Bikaner, but was also the executant in over half a dozen other land agreement registrations in the region during the same period between 2009 and 2011. Nagar’s name is stated in the registration records for six land purchases in Kolayat by a company named Alpha Heights Pvt Ltd based in Daryaganj, Delhi, and another purchase made by a Bhubaneshwar-based real estate marketing company. These include a 13.67-hectare plot and a 8.81-ha plot purchased in August 2009 for Rs 31,00,000 and Rs 18,70,000. The seller in these two deals was Bikaner investor Vineet Asopa, who received cheques bearing Vadra’s signature, though records of the Registrar of Companies show the directors of Alpha Heights as being Anju and Amit Yadav of New Delhi. Other properties purchased by Alpha Heights include a 5.5-ha plot purchased for Rs 18 lakh, a 1.72-ha plot for Rs 5,60,000 and a 0.65-ha plot purchased for Rs 2,70,000, all in August 2009,” the report said.

“The fact-finding committee set up by the Haryana government to probe the charges levelled by IAS officer Ashok Khemka against Robert Vadra’s land deals will probe only two of Khemka letters within a month,” The Indian Express said in a report.

“While the first letter pertains to Khemka ordering a probe into the under-valuation of land purchased by Vadra or his companies or his companies in Gurgaon, Faridabad, Mewat and Palwal districts, in the second letter, he had cancelled Vadra’s mutation in Shikohpur village,” the report said.

20 October 2012

There is a fresh twist in L’affaire Vadra. Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan has said that Robert Vadra was involved in the alleged Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam and has demanded a probe, The Times of India said in a report.

“Khan, in fact, created ripples by alleging that Vadra got contracts of several projects related to 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG), which was marred by the scam estimated to be of over Rs 10,000 crore. He said that if the Congress led central government fails in taking any action in corruption cases, people will teach lesson to the Congress in 2014 Lok Sabha elections as they did in the case of Mayawati by voting against her in UP assembly elections,” the report said.

“Addressing media persons, Khan said that he has been demanding independent probe against Robert Vadra for getting several contracts related to the CWG since long. “People want to know how the son-in-law of Congress president got the contracts in his name and other people and what was his qualification and what was the quality of the work,” he said. He also said that the probe should include Vadra’s with real estate giant DLF,” the report further said.

“Corporation Bank on Friday reiterated it had not extended overdraft facility of Rs 7.94 crore to a company owned by Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and has no role in the raging controversy over his land deal with realty major DLF. “The bank has no role in the entire controversy,” Corporation Bank chairman and managing director Ajai Kumar told reporters in Kochi,” thePress Trust of India has reported.

“He said the bank had not extended any overdraft facility to Sky Light Hospitality, the company owned by Vadra. “We have not extended any overdraft facility. Some accounting practices have been followed by the company and I cannot comment on that,” he said,” the report adds.

An opinion piece in Firstpost.com has compared L’affaire Vadra to a similar episode in the 1980s surrounding Imelda Marcos, a Filipino politician and widow of Ferdinand Marcos, the former President of The Philippines.

“It’s amazing what one gets to see when the palace doors come loose on their hinges,” the piece says.

“In 1986, when a ‘people’s power’ revolution in the Philippines toppled Ferdinand Marcos from power, ending a 21-year dictatorial reign, the dirty unwashed masses, who had been robbed blind by Marcos’ corrupt ways for a generation, got a chance to see what had been going on behind the high walls of Malacanang Palace. They learnt, for instance, that during those 20-plus years in power, he and his diva-esque wife Imelda Marcos had embezzled public funds running to billions of dollars and channelled them into accounts and investments in Switzerland, the US and elsewhere,” the piece notes further.

“Much the same can be said of the frenzy of land acquisition by our politicians—and, at least in one case, a politician’s son-in-law—the sordid details of which have been tumbling out of cupboards in recent days. In almost all the cases that have come to light, the modus operandi for instant fortunes is simple: corner large plots of agricultural land, bought on the cheap from farmers, change the land-use pattern (which those in positions of power can get done in double-quick time), and sell it to real-estate developers for windfall profits. It’s the alchemy of the new age, only it comes with infinitely better return on investment,” it goes on to say.

Another report, this time in India Today, has detailed Vadra’s land deals in Bikaner.

“What is significant about Vadra’s land dealings in Bikaner is that he was among the first to buy property there when Bikaner’s Gajner town of Kolayat tehsil was hardly seen as an investment destination because of its aridness and lack of infrastructure,” the report notes.

“It all started in December 2008, when Ashok Gehlot ousted the BJP’s Vasundhara Raje in the assembly elections and came to power in the desert state,” it further says.

19 October

Ajay Singh, the managing editor of Governance Now, has said that the Indian ruling elite has a “code of silence”.

“Like the Italian Mafiosi bound by the pact of secrecy known as Omerta, India’s elites are intrinsically secretive. They fight back bitterly whenever this unwritten code is challenged. This is why Jinnah’s eating habits and Nehru’s notings on the Indo-China war remain taboos in public discourse so far. Gandhi, whose life was his message, is the sole exception. But in the age of social media, this code has come under siege,” Singh says.

“Take the case of Robert Vadra whose shenanigans were talked about in a hushed tone in Delhi’s power circles. But the whole issue was forbidden in public discourse. Similarly BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s antics that cross the boundary of public morality are never a hidden fact. His dalliances with industrialists of questionable credentials are frowned upon within the Hindutva family. Yet the issue is a taboo not only for the BJP but also for other political leaders. In this context, the reaction of BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, and RSS’s second-in-command Bhaiyya-ji Joshi in defence of Gadkari was predictable. But what is really amazing is the thickness of the hide that the political class has come to acquire over the years to become totally impervious to legal, moral or ethical values. The Vadra-Gadkari episode just exemplified that,” he goes on to say.

“Arvind Kejriwal could be accused, with some reason, of being like a Bofors gun—he ‘shoots and scoots’. The specifics of the allegations that he makes in each case may be wrong or off the mark, but he is not waiting to provide explanations or get into arguments, because he has moved on to his next target. It is hard to tell whether this tactic will be effective, particularly in the face of a “club class” of politicians who are willing to brazen it out, come what may,” T.N. Ninan says in an opinion piece in Business Standard.

“The question to ask is whether, when charges are flying thick and fast in all directions, the institution of a Lokpal—which the movement led by Anna Hazare had made its single-point demand last year—would have made a difference? Would it, in the first instance, have provided protection to those who feel wrongly targeted? After all, a reference to the Lokpal would have led to proper scrutiny, and clearing of the air if the charges were baseless—so that reputation damage was avoided. Salman Khurshid would not have needed to threaten answers written in blood, if all he had to do was present his case to a Lokpal. Similarly, those hurling accusations today would have had to be more responsible because any charges they make would quickly have been put to the test. Finally, those guilty would not have been able to brazen it out, as is being done today, because their actions could have been referred to the Lok Pal by any ordinary citizen,” he goes on to say.

Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN has compared the demeanour of Robert Vadra to that of Upinder Singh, an academic and daughter of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and asks if Vadra “could learn” from her.

“At a seminar in Delhi a few years ago, a soft-spoken, petite woman in a crumpled sari was one of the panellists. She engaged in the debate and then quietly left in a self-driven Maruti car with hardly anyone noticing. Except for her associates, few others would have known that they had been in the company of the Prime Minister’s daughter: Professor Upinder Singh, professor of history at Delhi University,” Sardesai says.

“Since the era of Indira Gandhi, who allowed her son Sanjay to benefit from the largesse of a Haryana chief minister of another era (remember Bansi Lal and Maruti?), almost every Indian Prime Minister has had to face the accusation of allowing proximity to power to benefit their relatives in some form or the other. In that sense, Manmohan Singh and his family stand out as glorious exceptions to the rule. Dr Singh is perhaps fortunate that his family has been primarily in academia and thus is less likely to be influenced by a charmed power circle. Robert Vadra is a businessman, and to that extent, was always more susceptible to the charge of misusing his position for monetary benefits. Ditto the case with another businessman-turned neta Jagan Mohan Reddy, son of the late Andhra chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. Both Vadra and Reddy have every right to be in business, but both as a result also have to explain as to how their assets multiplied several times over when their families were in power,” he goes on to say.

“The likes of an Arvind Kejriwal have astutely tapped into this growing rage against an unequal system and looked for specific ‘targets’ who are seen to symbolize the privileges of the powerful. The evidence need not be foolproof, criminality need not be established, but in an atmosphere where there is a general ‘perception’ that netas and their influential kith and kin are given special treatment, the anti-corruption campaign has become synonymous with a desire of the ‘aam admi’ to get ‘even’ with the ‘khaas admi’ who is seen to be unaccountable. You don’t need to establish a quid pro quo in the dealings of the rich and powerful; the widespread ‘perception’ that such cosy networks exist is enough to convince people that undue benefits have been conferred,” he further says.

“Under fire for land deals with Robert Vadra companies, DLF is rocking politics in Himachal also as both BJP and Congress trade charges, alleging that land has been sold to the company in violation of state laws,” Hill Post reported.

“Defending charges of having sold land to DLF in Kasauli area, Arun Sen, a brother-in-law of former union minister Virbhadra Singh denied that he had anything to do with the real estate company,” thereport said.

“In support of his argument, he even circulated copies of two documents in which permissions for land transactions to DLF Realities and Isawel Builders had been granted in March 2008, at a time when the new BJP government was only 3 months old after winning elections on 30th December, 2007,” the reportfurther said.

In an analytical piece, Firstpost.com has said that effectively Vadra’s land in Bikaner was paid for by DLF.

“Vadra bought these plots of land through his companies Sky Light Hospitality Pvt Ltd, Sky Light Realty Pvt Ltd, Real Earth Estates Pvt Ltd, North India IT Park Pvt Ltd and Blue Breeze Trading Pvt Ltd. The question is where did these companies get the money to buy this land? The one word answer is DLF,” the report said as it went on to explain how the real estate major effectively paid for the deals.

“After three days of its announcement, the Haryana government formed on Friday an inquiry committee headed by additional chief secretary, revenue, Krishan Mohan, with two other senior members of the state government to examine Ashok Khemka’s stand on the land deals involving Robert Vadra and DLF in Gurgaon and Palwal districts,” Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

“The inquiry which was to be completed within a month by the committee is supposed to look into the claims made by Khemka on the land deals involving Robert Vadra’s M/s Sky Light Hospitality Pvt Ltd and DLF Universal,” the report added.

Tehelka has said that IAS officer Ashok Khemka taking on Robert Vadra is akin to David taking on Goliath.

“It was not just the Vadra-DLF deal. Earlier, Khemka had specifically named six companies owned by Vadra that needed to be probed. Khemka also ordered deputy commissioners-cum-registrars of Palwal, Mewat, Gurgaon and Faridabad to scrutinise all documents registered by Vadra and his companies to assess the real values of the properties mentioned,” the report said.

“Khemka’s is the typical story of the boy from a humble background who entered the premier civil services of the country. His father was an accountant with a jute factory in Kolkata, where Khemka studied till Class XII before moving to IIT Guwahati. He then did his PhD from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai,” it went on to say.

“Sadly, this is not the first time that an upright office has been hounded by the state government. Haryana’s track record in dealing with another whistleblower, Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi, has been much chronicled as a matter of national shame. Chaturvedi was transferred 12 times after he exposed several irregularities in the state forest department. The Haryana government had to revoke his suspension after the Centre intervened and had him transferred out of the state. But the State continues to hound Chaturvedi with criminal cases,” it said.

A report published by Firstpost.com has said that Arvind Kejriwal may have “goofed up” on a deal between DLF and the Haryana government.

“Some respite for Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and DLF! The alleged Vadra-DLF nexus is not so apparent in the 350-acre land deal at Gurgaon that the Haryana government had struck with DLF through international competitive bids in 2009. However, the 3.5 acre Manesar plot which Vadra sold to DLF in a sweetheart deal in 2008 certainly smells fishy. It remains dubious and unexplained,” the report says.

“Documents accessed by Firstpost reveal that Arvind Kejriwal may have erred in facts by linking a Rs 1,700 crore DLF deal in Haryana as quid pro quofor various favours shown to Vadra in other real estate deals, including the purchase of flats from DLF at undervalued rates. Kejriwal had raised five questions against the deal. All his claims can, however, be contradicted with documents, which narrate the sequence of events leading to the 350-acre land deal with DLF,” the report further says.

“The Haryana government is preparing ground for action against whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who had cancelled the mutation of Robert Vadra-DLF land deal on October 15 based on a letter by director general of town and country planning department T C Gupta. This letter was submitted to chief secretary P K Chaudhery on Wednesday,” a report in The Times of India has said.

“It’s another matter that with continuous transfers of the whistleblower IAS officer, the Haryana government may be violating its own rules framed in 2010. In a notification on October 13, 2010, the government had fixed minimum tenure of posting of IAS officers holding various assignments, including director general, as two years. No minimum period was fixed for the chief secretary,” the report further noted.

Meanwhile, The Indian Express has detailed a set of other land deals that Khemka was probing as director general. consolidation and land records.

“In just over two months in that post, Khemka had taken on a mining baron for allegedly usurping 53 acres of panchayat land in Manesar; an IAS officer, Praveen Kumar, for allegedly allowing partition and demarcation of panchayat land in favour of his mother while he was DC of Faridabad; IAS officers S C Gupta and Anil Kumar for the alleged transfer of panchayat land in favour of private companies; and a minister for allegedly using a consolidation officer close to him to transfer land in favour of his chartered accountant. He was aware of the possible consequences. “I am threatened of adverse action and transfer in case an order is made against such racketeering. Overcoming this fear I have passed a revisionary order…” he wrote in a September 22 order dealing with a land transfer in which a minister and some IAS officers were allegedly involved,” the report said.

“In a flurry of deals between June 2009 and August 2011, Robert Vadra purchased at least 20 plots of land collectively measuring more than 770 hectares in Rajasthan’s Bikaner district, in a region that would see prices spiraling soon after,” DNA newspaper has said in a report.

“A clutch of investors, including Vadra, apparently privy to information on upcoming industrial projects in the vicinity, reaped huge profits with land values appreciating by up to 40 times since 2009.

Click here to read the list of plots Data from the office of the registrar in Bikaner shows 20 properties Vadra purchased through companies, including Real Earth Estates Pvt Ltd, North India IT Park Pvt Ltd, and Skylight Realty Pvt Ltd. All the deals were executed on his behalf by Mahesh Nagar, brother of Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee member Lalit Nagar. These companies together invested Rs2.85 crore in barren land here during this period,” the report further notes.

“When Haryana went to polls in the autumn of 2009, Congress fielded a first-time candidate, Lalit Nagar, in Faridabad’s newly-created constituency of Tigaon. According to a report filed in a Chandigarh-based paper, Nagar had “made a name as a realtor in the area”. But political circles in Faridabad believe not just did he make his name and fortune in the real estate business, Nagar also earned his ticket through it. Documents available with TOI show Lalit Nagar’s brother, Mahesh Nagar, purchased land on behalf of Robert Vadra, not just in Haryana but also in Rajasthan,” The Times of India has said in a report.

“A sale deed dated 3 March, 2008, shows nine acres of land in Hasanpur village in Haryana’s Palwal district was sold by Gurgaon resident H L Pahwa to Robert Vadra for Rs 36.9 lakh. At the bottom of the deed, Pahwa has signed as the seller. But the buyer’s signature is not Vadra’s, it is Mahesh Nagar’s. The buyer is named as ‘Robert Vadra through Mahesh Nagar’, which shows Vadra has vested authority/power of attorney in Mahesh Nagar. Similarly, a sale deed from Rajasthan’s Bikaner district shows 4.63 acres of land in Basti village in Ganganagar tehsil was sold for Rs 8.5 lakh in April, 2009, by 42-year-old Sarita Devi Bothra to Real Earth Estate Private Limited, a company based in New Delhi. The company’s director is Robert Vadra. The purchase is done on his behalf by Mahesh Nagar,” the report goes on to say.

An feature in Open magazine has questioned Robert Vadra’s “silence” on the allegations being leveled against him and also commented on what it means for the Gandhi family and the Congress party.

“Two years before he lost faith in the ‘Mango people’, Robert Vadra told The Times of India that he had been under party pressure to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha election from Sultanpur, the constituency adjoining his mother-in-law Sonia Gandhi’s Raebareli and brother-in-law Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi. “There was a huge demand for me to stand [from Sultanpur],” he told the paper, “but I was clear that it was not my place. I was being recognised only because of the family.” Unknowingly, Vadra had gone to the heart of the matter that is now being contested in the public domain after charges of a nexus between him and DLF have been levelled by the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement reborn as a political party. What Vadra, as Priyanka Gandhi’s husband, acknowledged in 2009 is exactly what the party loyal to the family he has married into has failed to accept today. This is as true of the host of lawyers who think politics in this country is entirely a matter of what is legally tenable, and that issues of propriety or public perception do not count in a democracy,” the piece says.

Another report in The Times of India has questioned whether land in Manesar in Haryana was undervalued for Vadra.

“When Congress chief’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s company came to the office of Manesar sub-registrar on September 18 this year to register the sale deed (no. 1435) withDLF Universal of the 3.53-acre land that he had bought in Shikohpur in February 2008, the officer was well aware that the value of this land had shot up by almost eight times from Rs 7.5 crore to Rs 58 crore in just four months,” the report notes.

“The land was bought by Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality on February 12, 2008, for Rs 7.5 crore. Immediately after that, Vadra’s firm applied for change of land use licence (known as LOI/licence in official circle) which he was awarded on March 28, 2008. Within months, Vadra entered into a sale agreement with DLF for Rs 58 crore for the same land and received the first instalment of Rs 5 crore on June 3, 2008. Subsequently, he got three more cheques of Rs 10 crore, Rs 35 crore and Rs 8 crore on March 27, 2009, November 7, 2009 and July 25, 2012 respectively. All these payment details, including the cheque numbers, were mentioned in the sale deed which was signed and registered with the Manesar sub-registrar on September 18, 2012. After reading the document, the sub-registrar could have easily detected the fact that the land which was bought on February 12, 2008, for Rs 7.5 crore was sold to DLF for Rs 58 crore by June 3, 2008, and the first instalment of the money was also paid to Vadra by then,” the report further says.

Admin · Guru

18 October

An opinion piece in The Pioneer has said that if Vadra is a private citizen, then he and his family should explain their deals and not the Congress party.

“It is strange that senior Congress ministers and party leaders should have rushed head over heels to defend the controversial dealings of Robert Vadra, a private citizen. It shows the party’s sycophantic nature,” The Pioneer says.

Meanwhile, a report in Mint has sought to question the Congress’ claim that Vadra is a private citizen.

“The argument may not be a tenable one, say legal and financial experts, citing international law and even a circular issued by the central bank. None of the people wanted to be identified given Vadra’s position,” the report says.

“The experts point to India being a full signatory to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering, which clearly defines a “Politically Exposed Person” (PEP) and the set of people who qualify to be PEPs and cannot, therefore, be treated merely as private citizens,” the report goes on to say.

A local Jaipur court has taken cognizance of a complaint against Vadra “for his reported comment ‘mango man in banana republic’ on a social networking site”, the Press Trust of India reported.

Lawyer A.C. Upadhyay “has sought action against Vadra under sections 121-A (sedition), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 500 and 501 (defamation) of IPC (Indian Penal Code)”, the report said.

Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka on Thursday said that anyone having any objection to his recent order cancelling the land deal of Robert Vadra and realty giant DLF could move the high court as per law, the Hindustan Times newspaper said in a report.

“To the question on the letter written by TC Gupta, director, town and country planning department, to Chaudhery terming Khemka’s order as incorrect, he said that the same was ‘red herring’ to divert the real issues,” the report said.

Action by civil servants can do much more to check corruption than activists’ movements against it, journalist Sandipan Deb has said in an opinion piece in Mint, while commenting on IAS officer Ashok Khemka’s stand against Vadra’s land deals.

“Corporation Bank chairman and managing director Ajai Kumar on Thursday said no funds by way of loan or overdraft has been given to Robert Vadra, son-in-law of UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi,” The Hindu Business Line reported.

Replying to a question as to whether the public sector bank had given over Rs.7.5 crore to Vadra, who is currently embroiled in a controversy over a real estate deal with housing major DLF Group in Haryana, he reiterated the bank’s position: “We have already denied it. There is nothing new to add. We don’t have any documents whatsoever to comment on this issue.”

In an opinion piece, Mint’s editor R. Sukumar has said that Arvind Kejriwal is changing the rules of politics as his strategy is suited to the information age.

“...in some ways, his current role, as a conduit for and amplifier of information on the deals and dealings of ministers and politicians—Kejriwal himself calls them the ruling class—is a continuation of his earlier role as an advocate for and evangelist of the Right to Information legislation, one that brought him fame and a won him a Magsaysay award,” the piece said.

“I see Kejriwal as India’s Julian Assange; only unlike Assange’s strong anti-system objectives, his own are somewhere between highlighting the gaps in people managing the current system and presenting himself as an objective. Wikileaks was built around the documents it leaked and Kejriwal has stressed, more than once, that there are a large number of documents that IAC has received (and continues to receive),” the piece goes on to say.

“A 58-crore land deal in Haryana between businessman Robert Vadra and real estate giant DLF was cancelled earlier this week, but the commercial license that was the heart of the deal is still in Mr Vadra’s name, said a senior government official today, emphasizing that this is in keeping with rules,” NDTV news channel said in a report.

“The head of Haryana’s Town and Country Planning Department, T.C. Gupta, told NDTV today that the license is still in Mr Vadra’s name, though the land was transferred to DLF last month till Mr Khemka cancelled the transaction on Monday. Mr Gupta said that that because formalities have yet to be completed, the license has not been transferred to DLF yet. He refuted allegations that licensing guidelines had been skewed for Mr Vadra,” the report said.

“ IAS officer Ashok Khemka’s decision to take his grievances to the media does not seem to have gone down well with the government,” The Times of India said in a report.

“Citing the All India Services (Conduct) Rules 1968, an official said, “The IAS officer has violated the rule by approaching media. The Haryana government is, therefore, well within its right to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him.” Rule 7 prohibits any IAS officer from approaching the media in any way “which has the effect of an adverse criticism of any current or recent policy or action of the central government or a state government”,” the report said.

IAS officers in Haryana are turning against each other in the wake of the Robert Vadra-DLF deal revelations, CNN-IBN news channel has said in a report.

“Town and Country Planning head T.C. Gupta has defended the deal and said action should be taken against transferred IAS officer Ashok Khemka, the former Director General of Land Consolidation. Gupta has written against Khemka’s observations. Khemka had in his order dated 11 October cancelled the mutation of the sale deed between Vadra’s company Sky Light Hospitality and DLF over a 3.5-acre plot in Gurgaon district. Khemka had cited a violation of the states consolidation act. Gupta now says Khemka had no grounds for objecting, accusing him of ignorance about the transfer of property act. In his letter to the chief secretary of Haryana,” the report says.

“Sanskrit poems tell us that mango buds lend sweetness to the cuckoo’s voice. Why is Robert Vadra striking a discordant note?,” Shyamal Majumdar asks in a piece in Business Standard.

“Going by his watermelon-sized biceps, which he didn’t mind showing off on his now-deactivated Facebook album, Robert Vadra is quite unlike a majority of the “mango people” who think that accumulation of wealth and midriff bulge have to go together. The rippling muscles that the flamboyant businessman loves to flaunt (for proof, do a search on Google Images) is also a testimony to the fact that he is doing full justice to his daily intake of fresh fruits -- grapevine has it that apple, mango and banana are his favourites, in that order. One only wishes he had done a return favour to the last two by not involving them in his public spat with Arvind Kejriwal and Co. For, one thing is certain after his mindless remarks on Facebook: Vadra is anything but the apple of the aam admi’s eyes after he termed “banana republic” the country his in-laws have been ruling for so long. It’s clear why he is on very slippery grounds,” the piece goes on to say.

“When Robert Vadra’s company came to the office of Manesar sub-registrar on 18 September this year to register the sale deed (no. 1435) with DLF Universal of the 3.53-acre land that he had bought in Shikohpur in February 2008, the officer was well aware that the value of this land had shot up by almost eight times from Rs 7.5 crore to Rs 58 crore in just four month,” The Economic Times newspaper has said in a report.

“The land was bought by Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitalityon 12 February 2008 for Rs 7.5 crore. Immediately after that Vadra’s firm applied for change of land use licence (known as LOI/licence in official circle) which he was awarded on 28 March 2008. Within months, he entered into a sale agreement with DLF for Rs 58 crore for the same land and received the first installment of Rs 5 crore on 3 June 2008. Subsequently, he got three more cheques of Rs 10 crore, Rs 35 crore and Rs 8 crore on 27 March 2009, 7 November 2009 and 25 July 2012 respectively,” the report notes.

“Gurgaon district magistrate P. C. Meena on Wednesday claimed the state government did not lose any revenue in the Robert Vadra-DLF land deals. He said the land was registered in the revenue records at much higher prices than the prevailing circle rates in 2008 as well as later in 2012,” Hindustan Timessaid in a report.

“Meena also clarified that assistant consolidation officers in Haryana were empowered to sanction the mutation. Shochand, sarpanch of Shikohpur village, also claimed that the farmers carried no grudge against anyone as they had sold their land to many land bankers from one of whom Robert Vadra must have purchased the 3.5-acre plot just off the National Highway No.8 in 2008,” the report further said.

Admin · Guru

17 October

An opinion piece in Rediff.com asks why “the Nehru Dynasty’s usual Teflon isn’t working for Robert Vadra” or why the “Congress’s code of Omerta” did not apply to Vadra.

“It s interesting that the normal code of the Congress party—absolute fealty to the Nehru dynasty— seems to have fallen by the wayside in the case of poor Robert Vadra. Newspapers are being allowed to question how Robert came by his millions, and the story of his Facebook gaffe re aam aadmi has gone viral. This is startling, because anybody associated with the dynasty normally gets the puff-piece/kid-gloves treatment in the craven English-Language Media,” the piece says.

“We have seen this not only in the case of genuine, bona fide relatives of Jawaharlal Nehru but even with peripheral players (especially if they are white)—for instance, Ottavio Quattrocchi: he was allowed to skip town, his assets were unfrozen by the law ministry, and the Indian authorities ‘did not even present proper legal documents’ to extradite him, according to an Argentinian judge. In other words, complete Omerta, the code of silence as used by the mafia,” the piece further says.

“Why? Enquiring minds want to know. I have no idea, but I have two conjectures: one is that Vadra is being sacrificed so that his relatively small scam (only Rs.500 crore. Yes, only!) can be used to divert attention away from the mega-scams (Coalgate, Thorium, Adarsh, CWG, 2G, Air India handicapgate, and so on, ad nauseam). And it is working: all these others have disappeared from the front pages. The second conjecture is more complex: that Vadra is seen as a threat to the dynasty scion du jour. There is a long history of those in that unhappy position suddenly losing their jobs (think Sitaram Kesri and the Toilet Revolution), or finding themselves very dead. It’s clearly not good for your health to be perceived as a possible challenger, however remote,” the piece goes on to say.

Congress leader Digvijay Singh has said that former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval “is behind” the attack on Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and Robert Vadra, The Indian Express has said in a report.

“He hit out at the BJP and Delhi-based Vivekanand International Foundation being run by a clutch of former intelligence officials and RSS swayamsevaks for planning the controversy. The Congress leader named former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval, who is the director of the Foundation, RSS swayamsevak S. Gurumurthy and Subramanian Swamy for “plotting totally baseless and concocted stories” against the Nehru-Gandhi family in the social media. He accused some people in the media for “taking it upon themselves to promote Arvind Kejriwal”,” the report said.

In an opinion piece in Mint , media critic Sevanti Ninan has said that Kejriwal now has to move beyond personalities.

“If Arvind Kejriwal’s disclosures got mileage because they had a range of media as amplifier, the man and his team did the media a return favour, forcing the fourth estate to rediscover its investigative instincts by throwing them periodic bones that they could hardly ignore,” Ninan said.

“Even the initially unwilling, including the Hindustan Times and The Indian Express, had to react with more details of the controversy emerging. These papers have had to take note of the Ashok Khemka transfer, disclosed on 16 October by The Hindu. On Wednesday, Hindustan Times came up with the Haryana chief minister’s hand in the land use change. We now have to see where that will lead us,” thepiece further said.

In another opinion piece, Mint has said that Kejriwal’s ‘name and shame’ politics will need follow-up and that his “half-way activism” is not enough.

“Even as the anti-corruption activists rejoice in uncovering newer scams, the law of unintended consequences kicks in and the Commonwealth Games scam, the 2G scam and the coal block allocation scam are displaced by sensational new disclosures. If any real change has to come out of any or all of these busts, that sequence needs to be interrupted. Somewhere in between, each of these scams need to be investigated thoroughly and meticulously and responsibility assigned,” the piece said.

After Robert Vadra, Rahul Gandhi too could come under some media scrutiny in relation to his financial deals.

“Former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala on Wednesday accused Rahul Gandhi of tax evasion in land purchase in a village in Palwal district,” Firstpost.com said in a story.

“Rahul Gandhi purchased a piece of land measuring around 6.5 acre in Hasanpur village in Palwal district of Haryana in March 2008. He resorted to tax evasion in it. Rahul bought this land at the rate of Rs 1.5 lakh per acre as mentioned in the land registration deed even as its valuation by the government at that time was Rs 8 lakh per acre,” Chautala told a press conference, according to the report.

“He said the government value of the land given to Gandhi at the rate of Rs 1.5 lakh per acre was Rs 8 lakh per acre while its market value was much more at Rs 35 lakh per acre. In a point by point rebuttal, Gandhi’s office said in Delhi that he had purchased 51 Kanal 13 Marla ( 6.456 acres) of Sailab Land in Hassanpur Village, Tehsil Hodal, District Palwal in Haryana,” the report further said.

“Arvind Kejriwal’s charges against Robert Vadra have earned him praise from Sangh Parivar’s mouthpiece Organiser for breaking the “unwritten code of silence” by striking at the “raw nerve” in the Congress,” The Indian Express said in a report.

“The latest issue of Organiser carries a cover story providing details of Kejriwal’s charges. “Vadra’s wealth, Congress in turmoil: Is Sonia family getting its just desserts, finally?” wonders a headline. Alleging that the deals between Vadra and real estate firms were “illegal transactions and malafide nexus” the articles seek to highlight that an ordinary citizen could not have availed similar deals,” the report goes on to say.

After targeting Vadra, law minister Salman Khurshid and BJP president Nitin Gadkari, Kejriwal could target more political heavyweights in the coming days, Mint said.

“Thanks to blanket coverage by television channels – the 5.00 pm press conference at New Delhi’s Constitution Club may have well been among the most watched on Indian TV—everyone knows what Kejriwal & Co don’t stand for, although not everyone gets the real message, said an analyst,” Mint said.

The Hindu newspaper has said that new documents “show clear and undeniable links between the sudden transfer of senior IAS official Ashok Khemka and his initiation of a probe specifically related to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and his companies, contrary to the Haryana government’s attempts to establish that the two events were unrelated.”

“... the internal documents confirm that Khemka’s first meeting on subject, which led eventually to the now highly controversial order cancelling the mutation of a key land transfer from Vadra to the real estate giant, DLF, was held on 8 October itself, where the sale deed of village Shikohpur and the mutation papers were called for and examined in the presence of district officials,” the report said.

“The reference to the 8 October meeting with other officials is made in passing in an internal memo signed by Ashok Khemka on 15 October which set out in brief the background to the order cancelling mutation he issued the same day,” the report further said.

An indirect official inquiry has been instituted for the first time into Robert Vadra’s land deals in Haryana following an allegation by an IAS officer that he was shunted out for ordering a probe, news websiteNewsbullet.in reports.

“The Congress-ruled Haryana government today announced a three-member inquiry committee, headed by the additional chief secretary. The panel was not constituted specifically to inquire into Vadra’s deals but they will be covered since it will look into the probe ordered by Ashok Khemka, the IAS officer, as well his statements to the media. The panel has been asked to file its report within a month,” the report said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra is now in a fix to explain the overdraft in his balance sheet, CNN-IBN news channel said in a report.

“Sources close to Vadra now say no loan was taken from the Corporation Bank, so there was no question of any overdraft. Sources add it is a standard practice to issue cheques of higher values than what’s there in an account, if there is possibility of that amount coming into the account at a later stage,” the report said.

“The big question now is that if Vadra’s company Sky Light hospitality wasn’t taking or repaying loan to Corporation Bank, what was the need to issue a cheque to a third party for 7.94 crore? Also, how did Vadra pay this sum of Rs 7.94 crore? Did the party to whom he paid the cheque of Rs 7.94 crore really encash the cheque? Sky Light will also have to answer as to how it showed an overdraft of Rs 7.94 crore from Corporation Bank in the balance sheet,” the report further added.

“It was Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda who had cleared the change of land use allowing a company, owned by Robert Vadra, to begin commercial activity barely a month after it purchased farmland in Gurgaon in 2008,” a report in the Hindustan Times newspaper has said.

“The 3.5 acres of land has triggered the storm following the cancellation of the deal between Vadra and real estate major DLF on Monday by an IAS officer in the state land registration department,” the report noted.

“Official documents, possessed by HT, show that Vadra’s company, Sky Light Hospitality, purchased the land at Shikohpur village in Gurgaon for Rs. 7.5 crore on 12 February 2008 and sought permission to develop a commercial colony on the land. And the Hooda government promptly granted the permission on March 21, 2008. Surprisingly, within three months of getting the permission, Sky Light Hospitality signed a deal to sell the same plot for Rs. 58 crore to DLF —nearly eight times the price at which it had purchased the land,” the report further said.

16 October

Business Standard has said that Ashok Khemka’s order cancelling DLF’s land mutation in Haryana may not be legally tenable.

“The cancellation might not hold good as Khemka was already sent a transfer order before that, pointed out an official. Haryana chief secretary Pradeep Kumar Chaudhary defended Khemka’s transfer as a decision taken by the Haryana government in compliance with a Punjab and Haryana high court order dated 1 October. According to a Haryana government spokesperson, Khemka wanted to be relieved from the post of special collector. Since the court wanted the government to take a quick decision on filling the special collector’s position, usually held jointly by the land consolidation director general, Khemka was transferred, the state government said.Officials hinted Khemka might not have been the competent authority to cancel a land mutation suo motu,” the report noted.

Rajasthan Congress legislators led by parliamentary secretary Rajendra Singh Bidhuri have demanded removal of cabinet minister Bharat Singh, accusing him of nursing anti-Gandhi family sentiments and challenging the party high command’s decisions, The Times of India has said in a report.

“The party’s 10 legislators have written a letter to Sonia, targeting Singh for his alleged remarks made at the Congress legislative party (CLP) meeting last week. The letter points out that minister Singh allegedly objected to the suggestion that the Congress legislators ought to defend Sonia’s son-in-law Robert Vadra should the opposition BJP target him in the state assembly. It is alleged that Singh objected to the suggestion saying it was Sonia family’s personal matter and the party should not be involved in it,” thereport said.

“Alleging that Robert Vadra used his ‘connections’ with the Gandhi family to accumulate wealth and commit other improprieties, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday questioned Arvind Kejriwal for restricting his expose to Vadra only and not attacking the Congress president on the issue,” the Indian Express newspaper said in a report.

“Swamy also took to task Kejriwal for restricting his expose only against Vadra to score points through media and not going to the court to nail the Congress president’s son-in-law if at all he wanted to root out corruption from the political system,” the report added.

“Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who was transferred by the Haryana government after he ordered an investigation into the land deals between Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and realty major DLF, on Tuesday said that he suspected that the Punjab and Haryana high court order was used as a pretext to transfer him out,” CNN-IBN news channel said.

“Earlier, the Haryana government was forced to order an investigation into the Vadra-DLF Manesar land deal worth Rs 58 crore after Khemka cancelled the land mutation saying it violated the consolidation act of the states. However, the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government questioned Khemka’s decision to scrap the deal without giving the affected parties a chance to give their version,” the report further added.

Firstpost.com has asked in an opinion piece if ‘Vadragate’ is turning out to be Sonia Gandhi’s ‘Bofors.’

“The impact of this (Bofors) on the Congress party was huge. It lost the 1989 election to an alliance of Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Rajiv Gandhi had to become the leader of the opposition. A party which had more than three-fourths of the seats in the Lok Sabha was thrown out of power,” the piece notes.

“It is often said that ‘perception is reality’. Rajiv Gandhi losing the 1989 Lok Sabha election because people ‘thought’ he was involved in the Bofors scandal and may have received a part of the kickbacks. And this perception was formed after his government stonewalled all attempts at bringing the guilty to book. A similar situation seems to be now brewing up in the Robert Vadra-DLF case. A string of lawyer ministers from the Congress have jumped into the ring in order to defend Robert Vadra and would like the world at large to believe that there is no truth in accusations being hurled at Vadra (and indirectly Sonia Gandhi) by Arvind Kejriwal and his associates,” the piece goes on to say.

“Senior Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who is in the news following controversy over land deals involving Robert Vadra, is receiving threat calls from unknown people,” Firstpost.com says in another report.

“The callers asked him to desist or else he would be eliminated. He further told me that those threatening him also talked about having given a ‘supari’ to eliminate him,” the report cited lawyer Anupam Gupta as saying.

DLF paid almost two times the market price for a plot of land it bought from Robert Vadra’s company, Skylight Hospitality, in Gurgaon in 2008-09, claim real estate analysts and property brokers, The Economic Times newspaper has said.

“In a press release issued by DLF on Saturday, the company had said it bought a 3.5-acre plot at village Sikohpur, Gurgaon district at FSI (floor sale index) cost of Rs 2,800 per sq ft. It also claimed that the price of this property has significantly appreciated, benefitting both the company and its shareholders. But analysts, property brokers and landowners say land in that area in 2008-09 did not cost more than Rs 1,500 per sq ft. They say that the current price of commercial FSI in the area is Rs 2,500 per sq ft, while land touching the highway costs Rs 3,000 per sq ft,” the report said.

Meanwhile, The Hindu newspaper has said that the transferred officer, Ashok Khemka, has protested his eviction from the post of Haryana’s Director-General of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum-Inspector-General of Registration in writing, alleging mala fide.

“Though he had no option but to accept the marching orders, Mr. Khemka issued an order on his last day in office on October 15 cancelling the mutation of a 3.531-acre plot of land in Manesar-Shikohpur that Mr. Vadra had sold to DLF for Rs. 58 crore,” the report notes.

“Three days earlier, pursuant to the probe he had already initiated, Mr. Khemka issued a letter formally ordering an inquiry across four districts into the “alleged under-valuation of some properties registered by Shri Robert Vadra or his companies as vendor or vendee.” His letter took note of IAC’s allegations and reports in the media. Based on the preliminary details uncovered by the inquiry in the case of at least one of those properties, Mr. Khemka cancelled the mutation of the 3.531- acre plot that Mr. Vadra’s company, M/s Sky Light Hospitality, had sold to DLF Universal Ltd on September 18, 2012. He did so on the grounds that the mutation violated the States Consolidation Act and was done not by a revenue officer but by the Assistant Consolidation Officer of Gurgaon who was not authorised to do so. (EA4/2012/4620-4621 dated 15 October, 2012),” the report notes.

A report in Business Standard has detailed how a DLF controlled entity linked to Vadra underwent several rounds of restructuring, which the report calls “curious.”

“First, the partner — a private company — and the partnership shared the name. Then, the partner gave up its name. After this, the partnership gave up its structure and changed into a limited company and took the name vacated by the partner. This head-spinning restructuring was part of realty major DLF’s business dealings with Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi,” the report says.

“Saket Courtyard Hospitality, the joint venture (JV) between Robert Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality and the DLF group, has taken three different avatars in the past three years. According to the annual report for the year 2010-11, there were two entities by the same name. The first was Saket Courtyard Hospitality Pvt Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary of DLF. (The 2009 annual report says this company was originally known as DLF Saket Hotels.) The second entity was Saket Courtyard Hospitality, a partnership firm,” it goes on to say.

Another Business Standard story questions whether a Corporation Bank cheque that Vadra’s company Sky Light issued, was actually ever presented.

“What stops you from writing a cheque for Rs 7.94 crore, if you are sure the payee won’t present it for payment? Nothing, really, not even the fact that your bank account has a balance of Rs 1 lakh or less. It is this confidence that seemed to have helped the Robert Vadra-promoted Sky Light Hospitality to write one or more cheques amounting to Rs 7.94 crore and account that as “book overdraft” in its balance sheet for the year ended March 31, 2008. A book overdraft is not an overdraft at a bank but an excess of outstanding cheques on a company’s books over its reported bank balance,” the report says.

“However, it is not clear who sold the land to Sky Light. It is also not clear if the licences were granted after Sky Light took possession of the land. But if the licences were received earlier, that would raise a question over why the seller sold the land at the price he did. If that price was right then why would DLF pay four times that sum a few months down the line? Vadra did not respond to queries in this regard emailed to his private secretary,” the report goes on to say.

“Nearly three years after realty major DLF cited industry practice to give UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra a R50 crore interest-free advance for a 3.5 acre plot in Manesar in Haryana, the company has finally got unencumbered possession of the land,” the Financial Expressnewspaper said in a report.

“The land was ‘conveyanced’ in the name of the real estate firm last month, and DLF has now paid Vadra the balance R8 crore,” the report said.

“While DLF has not been able to cite other instances of where interest-free advances have been given, and over such long periods of time, a perusal of the books of various Vadra firms shows he used the advance to make other investments, including in several DLF properties. Interestingly, DLF officials who first said the company had got the plot in 2008-09, the year in which it gave Vadra the advance, now argue the firm saved money by not getting the property from Vadra earlier,” the report added.

“ A senior IAS officer in Haryana government’s Land Registration Department was transferred for reportedly cancelling the mutation of a 3.531 acre plot of land in Manesar-Shikohpur that Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra sold to DLF for Rs 58 crore in 2009,” news channelCNN-IBN reported.

“Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka was transferred as the DG Haryana Seed Development Corporation, three days after he ordered a probe into the land deals between Vadra and DLF on 8 October. Before leaving office, on October 15, Khemka cancelled the mutation of the land, citing irregularities in the transfer of land from Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality Private Limited to the real estate giant,” the news report said.

Admin · Guru

15 October

In an opinion piece Firstpost.com has said that the Congress party cannot let law minister Salman Khurshid resign because doing that would shift the spotlight back on Robert Vadra.

“The party fears that if Khurshid is made to resign now, it would unwittingly be giving credit to Arvind Kejriwal and a media house against whom Khurshid has filed a Rs 100 crore defamation suit. Moreover, if the Khurshid case moves off prime time, the focus would return to the Robert Vadra issue and open the flood gates to similar demands against other ministers,” the piece notes.

“Even as holes were being punched in Khurshid’s defence from various quarters, the Congress is under pressure on all fronts. Senior leaders may publicly be putting up a brave front, but internally, the “expose” comes at a time when the results of two Lok Sabha bypolls have already rattled the Congress. In the Jangipur parliamentary seat in West Bengal, President Pranab Mukherjee‘s son Abhijit barely scraped through with a narrow victory margin of 2,536 votes, and in the Tehri seat in Uttarakhand, chief minister Vijay Bahuguna’s son lost to the BJP,” the piece goes on to say.

Rediff.com has tried to analyse how the Vadra episode is playing out on social networking site Twitter.

“No sooner than budding politico Arvind Kejriwal break the unspoken consensus among mainstream political parties and charged Robert Vadra with a get-rich-quick scheme using realty giant DLF, Twitter has been abuzz with savage humour on the country’s first son-in-law,” the piece said, as it went on to detail some of the more interesting tweets.

An editorial in the India Today magazine has commented on Vadra’s sense of humour and what the controversy means for the Gandhi family.

“The seasoned wit and raconteur Robert Vadra believes that Indians do not have a sense of humour. That may or may not be true, but it is distinctly better than having no sense at all,” it says.

“Humour is complicated. One man’s wit is so easily another’s insult. Folklore, and general conversation, indicate that Indians are pretty good at both murky ethnic jokes as well as the noble habit of laughing at the powerful. How would you rate this SMS that raced around after details about Vadra’s triumphant rise as the most famous real estate dealer in Indian history went public? Rahul Gandhi despairingly told his Mummy, ‘First CWG, then 2G, then Coal-G. And now it’s Jijaji.’ Not bad. That Jijaji has just the nice twang that serves so well in north Indian chai shop chat,” the piece goes on to say.

“This is the first time since Bofors in the 1980s when the Gandhi family is being charged with corruption, and mud is turning into glue. The Commonwealth scandal involved Congress leaders, but not at the high rungs; during telecom, Congress managed to distance itself and direct blame towards an ally, DMK. Coalgate was harder but the responsibility went to the government and the Prime Minister. Robert Vadra is family. The Vadra crisis has also damaged the Congress effort to shift the debate from corruption to economic reforms. The principal attention is back on sleaze,” the piece further notes.

Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, had bought as many as 41 premium apartments from DLF Ltd, but subsequently sold most of them at a profit, The Economic Timessaid in a report.

“All the apartments were acquired by companies promoted by him, including Sky Light Hospitality—which had dealings with DLF—by paying a minimum booking amount, with the exception of a luxury pad in the picturesque Aralias, for which he paid the entire sum of Rs.11.9 crore upfront,” the report added.

“Most of these apartments were bought for the purpose of trading as Vadra sold around 38 of these 41 apartments subsequently, said a DLF executive. A DLF spokesman confirmed Vadra had bought these apartments in the three projects. He also said that the client had later paid around Rs.7 crore as delayed payment charges,” the report went on to say.

DLF is not the only real estate company that lends to partners and loans, and advances account for as much as a fourth of India’s top real estate majors, Business Standard has said in a report.

In 2011-12, loans and advances accounted for nearly a quarter of the consolidated assets of India’s top real estate companies. DLF is, in fact, better placed than many of its peers, as loans and advances accounted for 18% of its consolidated assets during the last fiscal year, against Unitech Ltd’s 51%,Sobha Developers Ltd’s 47%, Godrej Properties Ltd’s 32% and Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd’s 28 per cent,” the report says.

“The total outstanding loans and advances of India’s top 12 listed real estate companies were aroundRs.30,000 crore at the end of FY12, a threefold jump from Rs.10,600 crore at the end of FY07. During the same period, DLF’s loans and advances doubled to around Rs.10,000 crore from Rs.5,233 crore at the end of FY07,” the report adds.

in 2010-11, Sky Light Hospitality’s books show an advance of a little over Rs.58 crore (equivalent to the Manesar sale price), and no booking of profits on the deal (which would have to be done if the land had been conveyanced to DLF). Perhaps this was done in 2011-12, for which the regulatory filings are not yet available,” it goes on to note.

In a news report, citing DLF officials, NDTV reports that “Vadra and his company Skylight Realty were charged penalties for late payments along with interest; the sources also revealed that in one of its housing projects, Mr Vadra bought 15 flats, of which 13 were bought back by DLF. The transactions suggest that Mr Vadra’s firm operated as a real estate trader, making mass bookings when the projects were announced, and then reselling them to either DLF or others—a standard industry practice that can lead to profits for the real estate developer as well as the trader.”

“In response to a detailed questionnaire from NDTV, DLF sources stated that not only did Mr Vadra pay market rates for the many apartments he bought from DLF, but that he was also fined for late payments in some cases. So, they allege, in the case of an apartment in the posh Aralias project in Gurgaon, Mr Vadra paid Rs.11.9 crore, which included penalties and interest for late payments. Mr Kejriwal and Mr Bhushan had accused DLF of selling this flat to Mr Vadra for just Rs.89 lakh. However, DLF sources clarified that they received a payment of Rs.11.9 crore for the Aralias apartment from Skylight Realty. NDTV has accessed the March 2011 balance sheet of Skylight Realty, which confirms the same. In June 2008, SkyLight Realty booked 15 flats in the Magnolias project, also in Gurgaon, for Rs.10,000 per square foot. Each flat was on an average about 6,000 square feet, so the price of the apartments worked out to approximately Rs.6 crore each. Three months later, DLF began buying the apartments back. By June 2010, it had bought back 13 of Mr Vadra’s 15 flats in this project. In this case, Mr Vadra could not sell his flats to a party other than DLF because being a premium project, the company did not allow these to be sold in the open market, unlike most of its other projects. DLF charged Rs.7 crore as delayed payment interest for the Magnolias apartments, according to the sources. The DLF sources told NDTV that in June 2009, Mr Vadra’s Skylight Realty booked 25 DLF Capital Greens apartments. The asking rate was between Rs.5,000 and Rs.6,000 per square foot, so Mr Vadra paid approximately Rs.60 lakh per apartment as a sort of advance or booking fee. Skylight Realty was charged an additional Rs.1 crore as delayed payment interest for these apartments, and his company has since resold them all,” the report notes.

“Independent directors on the board of DLF were party to its 2009 decision to sell 50% stake in a hotel at South Delhi to Robert Vadra-owned Skylight Hospitality, according to D.V. Kapur, an independent director,” The Indian Express said in a report.

“In a statement uploaded on the company’s website, Kapur on behalf of independent directors of DLF said the board approved the stake sale to Skylight Hospitality at an enterprise valuation of Rs.150 crore,” the report noted.

Meanwhile, in an interesting opinion piece in The Hindu newspaper, former diplomat Vivek Katju has said that at hand is an issue of propriety, more than that of law.

“The focus of the debate on the Robert Vadra-DLF real estate dealings has been on the legality of the transactions. Congress spokesmen insist that no evidence has come forth to show illegality and, therefore, rule out the need for an enquiry, while the opposition has somewhat mutedly asked for one. Though it is important to ascertain if any laws were violated, it is also necessary to go beyond the realm of the law and into the territory of propriety. Notions of propriety have changed since our freedom movement and the early years of our independence. This matter, and the revelations of the past few years, tell us the distance our polity and society have travelled since that time, unfortunately, in the wrong direction,” he says.

“We live in cynical times and any reference to probity in political and social life evokes only derision and an admonition to “get real.” Nevertheless, the times demand of us now more than ever before to reflect on what Gandhiji would have thought of all this. Gandhiji had advised those in public life that if they were ever in doubt about a policy or action they should think of how it would impact on the poorest of the poor. What would he have said to public men and their family members on contacts and dealings with businessmen? He would have certainly not suggested that they give up their trade or profession and takesanyas or not be friendly with them. Perhaps he would have recommended a simple test: that they ask themselves if a proposal or deal would have been offered to them had they not held a particular office or not been part of the family of such an office holder. This is the principal question that Mr. Vadra and his family have to address. The law may demand a direct nexus to a quid pro quo for corruption to be established but propriety makes a greater demand: that no personal benefit of a financial nature is derived on account of such a relationship,” he goes on to say.

9 October 2012

Arvind Kejriwal disclosed fresh evidence on Tuesday to back his accusations against Robert Vadra , son-in-law of Congress party president Sonia Gandhi , and accused the Haryana government of favouring property developer DLF Ltd , putting corruption-related issues back at the centre of the political debate, reports Mint

Kejriwal, who last week alleged that Vadra had purchased properties worth more than Rs.300 crore using “unsecured interest free loans from DLF”, produced more documents on Tuesday saying that the Haryana government had favoured DLF and gave it 350 acres of land in the state, cancelled a land acquisition in Manesar to favour the company and increased the floor area rate for it in the government’s Gurgaon Manesar Urban Complex Plan.

The Deccan Herald newspaper, meanwhile, draws an interesting parallel.

“As the allegations against Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi cause embarrassment to the party and country’s first political family, few would be aware that another son-in-law of the Nehru–Gandhi dynasty, Feroze Gandhi (September 12, 1912 – September 8, 1960), was instrumental in exposing independent India’s first corruption scam,” the newspaper says.

“ “A mutiny in my mind has compelled me to raise this debate. When things of such magnitude, as I shall describe to you later, occur, silence became a crime…..” were the words of Feroze Gandhi, son-in-law of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, when he rose to speak in Parliament in 1958 on the shabby deal between government-controlled Life Insurance Company and businessman Haridas Mundhra. Feroze Gandhi, husband Indira, had won the 1957 Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli and belonged to the treasury benches at that time, but nothing stopped him from exposing graft. The whole House listened in pin-drop silence as Feroze spoke, exposing the murky deal and concluded by establishing a conspiracy in which public funds were wrongfully employed for financing the interests of an individual at the cost of the insured. The expose resulted in the resignation of Finance Minister T T Krishnamachari and imprisonment of Mundhra. The revelations caused embarrassment to the Nehru Cabinet; however, the family could take pride in having a parliamentarian of high moral values,” the piece notes.

Meanwhile, the India Today magazine reported on various business links that Vadra has.

“He is a director in five companies—Sky Light Hospitality, Blue Breeze Trading, Sky Light Realty, Real Earth Estates, North India IT Parks, additional director in Lambodar Art Enterprises and MD of six entities—Lifeline Agrotech, Greenways Agro, Rightline Agriculture, Future Infra Agro, Best Seasons Agro and Prime Time Agro which were constituted only in 2012, according to data available from the ministry of corporate affairs as on September 28, 2012. The individual records of each company show that his companies have masses of land banks across three states. Barring the agro companies, all his other companies have a common address—268 Sukhdev Vihar, New Delhi- 110025. The property, which he first rented, was purchased from owner J.S. Walia. The first five companies have him and his mother as directors,” the report said.

“Vadra’s companies started out with promoter funding of Rs.50 lakh. Take Real Earth Estates for instance.

Rapidly, armed with loans amounting to Rs.8 crore, principally from DLF (Rs.5 crore), his own company Sky Light Hospitality (Rs.2 crore), another company owned by him Blue Breeze Trading (Rs.89.5 lakh) and another of his companies Artex (Rs.15 lakh), he began acquiring properties across north India—principally in Haryana and Rajasthan. While DLF has clarified that the Rs.50 crore transaction was for purchase a plot of land of 3.5 acres just off NH- 8 in Sikohpur village, Gurgaon district, from Vadra , the other property acquisitions across firms has not been explained yet. Sky Light Hospitality books reflect the Rs.50 crore advance,” the report further noted.

The Business Standard newspaper, in a front page story has said that auditors have raised eyebrows at DLF’s response to Vadra’s dealings with the companies.

“A senior partner of a leading audit firm pointed out accounting rules did not permit companies to give interest-free loans even to their subsidiaries, let alone others. Even as DLF claimed a business advance, and not an unsecured loan, was given to Vadra’s company, the realtor had not done enough to give specifics about the business for which the advance was paid, he said. Another chartered accountant, who also did not wish to be named, argued if an advance amount was refunded without the business maturing, there was always a doubt about the nature of the transaction. He was referring to the Faridabad land deal, in which DLF found legal infirmities at a later stage and Vadra’s company Sky Light Group refunded the Rs.15-crore ‘advance’. DLF had not shown any papers yet on any of the deals with Vadra, he said, adding the company might however do that over the coming days. According to analysts, the going rate of interest for loans in the real estate sector is anything between 14 and 18 per cent. In this case, no interest has been charged,” the newspaper report said.

“A senior representative of an accounting firm pointed out the difference between an unsecured loan and a business advance. Broadly speaking, while any loan is a contractual agreement between two or more parties accompanied by an interest at the time of payback, a business advance is usually not a contractual pact and mostly there’s no interest attached to it. While a loan is usually given against a security from the borrower, an unsecured loan is not accompanied by any such security. He added business advances were not very unusual in the industry,” the report further said.

Another CNN-IBN news report said, “In an interesting chain of events, Vadra on Monday deleted his Facebook account after a furore over his new status message that read, ‘Mango people in a banana republic’, in an apparent dig at India Against Corruption (IAC) member Arvind Kejriwal and senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who on Friday levelled allegations of corruption against him.”

8 October, 2012

The Congress on Monday said the allegations against Robert Vadra is an attack “not on an individual” but on the party and its leadership, and rejected demands for probe into his dealings with realty major DLF, a Press Trust of India report said.

“The attack (by Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan), which was made under a well-planned conspiracy was not on an individual but on Congress and its leadership. It was alleged that the blackmoney of Congress was invested in it. If such an allegation is made, a clarification will certainly come from Congress,” party spokesperson Rashid Alvi told reporters.

Shares in India’s biggest property developer DLF Ltd fell on Monday after anti-corruption activists accused the company of improper dealings with the son-in-law of the country’s ruling party chief Sonia Gandhi. Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and DLF have denied the allegations, Reuters reported. DLF shares closed down 7.24% to Rs224.25. The benchmark Sensex declined 1.21% to 18,708.09 points.

Meanwhile, DLF has released to BSE a copy of the press release it issued on 6 October that seeks to refute the allegations against it and Vadra.

“We would like to state that the business relationship of DLF with Mr Robert Vadra or his companies has been in his capacity as an individual entrepreneur, on a completely transparent and at an arm’s length basis,” DLF said in the statement. “Our business relationship has been conducted to the highest standards of ethics and transparency, as has been our business practices, all around.”

Vadra also issued a public statement, calling the activists’ accusations “utterly false, entirely baseless and defamatory.”

Ruling out any probe into business dealings between Robert Vadra and, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the government cannot look into private transactions unless there are specific allegations of corruption. “...unless there is a specific allegation of quid pro quo or corruption, I am afraid private transactions cannot and ought not to be allowed to be questioned on the basis of imputations and insinuations”, he said while responding to a question on the deals at the Economic Editors’ Conference in New Delhi, PTI reported.

In an opinion piece, Mint editor R. Sukumar said that given the specific charges being levelled, both Vadra and DLF would do well to set the record straight.

Citing documentary proof, the Hindu reported that Vadra’s property empire was built on soft loans handed out in unusual circumstances. The documents reveal no illegality or impropriety on the part of Vadra. Nor do they contain information to back allegations by IAC (India Against Corruption) against him and the Congress governments of Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan of a quid pro quo in which official favours were granted to DLF. But the papers do raise the question of why DLF would enter into business transactions with him on terms that appear highly preferential. The company on Saturday issued a press release setting out its version of the story. But its rationale for entering into an arrangement with Vadra remains opaque and raises corporate governance concerns about what is after all a publicly listed company. Minority shareholders could ask, for example, why an ‘advance’ was made before due diligence on a piece of property was conducted, and whether similar soft loans (or “advances” as DLF prefers to call them) and deals have been transacted with companies owned by other prominent individuals.

In 1997, the year Vadra married Priyanka Gandhi, he incorporated his first, modest business — Artex, which dealt with brass handicrafts and fashion accessories. From 2007, there was a surge in his activities. Inside of a year, he founded five other ventures, spanning the real estate, hospitality and trading sectors.

Meanwhile, television channel CNN-IBN has reported that after Vadra posted a new Facebook status that read, “Mango people in banana republic”, India Against Corruption (IAC) asked him to apologise. IAC member Arvind Kejriwal’s associate Kumar Vishwas demanded that Vadra apologise for insulting India by calling it a banana republic.

Quoting legal experts such as Ram Jethmalani and Rajeev Dhavan, The Economic Times said that since Vadra was not a public servant, he can’t be booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegations levelled by Kejriwal’s newly formed political party, India Against Corruption.

Independent directors of DLF have said the controversial transactions between Robert Vadra and India’s largest realty firm were not discussed by the board and if allegations of easy loans and cheap deals are proved, they should be probed, The Economic Times said on Monday, citing two independent directors on the board of DLF— K.N. Memani and D.V. Kapur.

7 October, 2012

Sticking to its demand for an investigation into Arvind Kejriwal’s allegations on Robert Vadra’s dealings with DLF Ltd, the BJP on Sunday said those involved should put forward a “concrete clarification” on the charges to put an end to the issue, reported the Press Trust of India. “A company (DLF), which itself has a loan to the tune of Rs 22,000 crore and paying an interest of 15% thereon was extending interest-free loans worth Rs 65 crore to Vadra,” BJP national spokesman Prakash Javadekar told reporters while demanding a probe into the matter, PTI reported.

Meanwhile, Vadra dismissed as “utterly false and defamatory” allegations over his property dealings with DLF. Vadra said that his business transactions are “fully reflected” in financial statements before government authorities in compliance with the law, adding that he was saddened by the attempt of activists Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan to malign him and his family, alleging it was being done to gain “cheap publicity” and for the launch of their political party.

Kejriwal on his part claimed Vadra has not answered questions on his links with DLF and described as “half truths and lies” the clarifications of the realty major to allegations that the husband of Priyanka was given property at throwaway prices for government favours. “My business transactions are fully reflected in financial statements filed before appropriate government authorities in compliance with the law. They are available in the public domain to anyone interested in knowing the truth,” Vadra said, rebutting the charges by Kejriwal, reported PTI.

6 October, 2012

DLF issued a press release rejecting the allegations that it had given unsecured loans to Vadra as a ‘quid pro quo’ for favours and said it had transparent dealings with him as an individual entrepreneur. In a statement, the company said it had given Rs 65 crore as “business advances”, out of which Rs 15 crore was fully refunded and Rs 50 crore was used for the purchase of land.

DLF said it neither received any undue benefit from any state governments nor was it alloted any land by the Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan governments. DLF also dismissed the charge that the company sold properties to Vadra and his companies at a throwaway price. “We would like to state that the business relationship of DLF with Mr Robert Vadra or his companies has been in his capacity as an individual entrepreneur, on a completely transparent and at an arm’s length basis,” DLF said. DLF said the business relationship with Vadra was in line with the highest ethical standards.

“We wish to categorically state that the DLF has given no unsecured loans to Mr Vadra or any of his companies. An amount of Rs 65 crore was given as business advances for the purchase of land in two transactions,” it added. DLF said it purchased 3.5 acres of land in Gurgaon from Skylight Hospitality for Rs 50 crore in 2008-09. “At no stage was an interest-free loan ever given to the Skylight group. There were two sets of business advances against purchase of property, one of which amounting to Rs 50 crore resulted in a satisfactory conclusion of purchase of commercial land and the second advance of Rs 15 crore was fully refunded,” it added. DLF also said that “it is not unusual for parties which sell land to DLF to choose to reinvest the consideration received or part thereof in projects being developed by DLF”. “There is no question of offering, let alone selling, Mr Vadra or his group companies any property at a throwaway price. The allegation that 7 apartments in Magnolias were sold for Rs 5.2 crore only is also completely baseless. At no stage was a property ever sold to the Skylight group below the then offered price to all customers,” DLF said, reported PTI .

5 October, 2012

Kejriwal, who has launched a new party after breaking ranks with activist Anna Hazare, and Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan held a press conference on Friday and alleged that Vadra, husband of Sonia Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka, purchased at least 31 properties, mostly in New Delhi, worth over Rs 300 crore for which money came from “unsecured interest-free loans from DLF Ltd”.

“They also alleged that the bulk of the properties purchased from real estate firm DLF are at a price that is far below the market price. The activists questioned whether it could be a ‘quid pro quo’ for DLF as it had benefited to the tune of around 350 acres of land in Haryana, which is ruled by the Congress. Releasing copies of documents from the ministry of corporate affairs showing Vadra’s ownership of the companies that hold the properties, they sought an independent investigation into the allegation,” reported Mint .