Top News

New Delhi, Jul 14 (PTI) Robert Vadra, the businessman husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, deposed before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday for questioning in a money laundering case linked to UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari and some others, official sources said.

The 56-year-old Vadra arrived at the federal probe agency's office located in central Delhi after 11 am. He was accompanied by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, MP from Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha seat.

The businessman's statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said.

He was called by the agency twice last month for questioning in this case but he sought deferment of his summons as he had to travel abroad.

Vadra is being investigated by the agency in three different money laundering cases, including two pertaining to alleged irregularities in land deals.

He was questioned by the ED in April for three consecutive days in a case linked to alleged irregularities in a 2008 Haryana land deal case. The businessman is also being investigated by the anti-money laundering agency in a case related to alleged financial irregularities in a land deal in Rajasthan's Bikaner.

The case linked to Vadra and Bhandari pertains to the ED findings reported in a chargesheet in 2023 alleging Bhandari "acquired" the 12, Bryanston Square house located in London in 2009 and got it renovated "as per the directions of Vadra and the funds for renovation were provided by Robert Vadra." Vadra has denied that he owned any London property directly or indirectly. Terming these charges as a political witch hunt against him, he has said that he was being "hounded and harassed" to subserve political ends.

The ED is expected to file a fresh chargesheet in the Bhandari case following the recording of Vadra's statement.

The 63-year-old Bhandari fled to London in 2016 soon after the Income-Tax department raided him in Delhi. He was recently declared a fugitive economic offender by a Delhi court.

A UK court, sometime back, refused the Indian government's application seeking permission to appeal in Britain's Supreme Court against the discharge of Bhandari in an extradition case against him, virtually ruling out chances of his being brought to the country to face the law. 

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)