Vadra skips ED summons again, cites court permission to travel abroad-OxBig News Network

Robert Vadra, the businessman husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, skipped his scheduled deposition before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the second time in a money laundering case linked to UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari, official sources said on Tuesday.

Vadra’s lawyer said his client was travelling abroad with the “prior” permission of the court to attend his daughter’s graduation ceremony.

He was asked to appear on Tuesday (June 17) after he failed to do so on June 10. The federal probe agency may issue him a fresh date after examining his reply.

The permission to travel (on June 17) was obtained well before the service of the latest summons and an intimation has been sent to ED also, advocate Suman Jyoti Khaitan said.

“Mr Vadra has repeatedly stated that he is available to extend his fullest cooperation with ED as he has done on all prior occasions, both upon his return from abroad and also for recording his statement through video conference during his stay abroad if required by them,” he said.

The businessman had skipped the June 10 summons saying he had flu-like symptoms on June 9 and had undertaken a Covid test as per protocol.

The agency is understood to be summoning Vadra to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and subsequently file a charge sheet in the case.

The federal probe agency had questioned the businessman for three consecutive days in April in a separate money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in a 2008 land deal in Haryana. He is being investigated in three money laundering cases by ED.

Bhandari (63), an alleged associate of Vadra, fled to London in 2016, soon after the Income Tax Department raided him in Delhi.

A UK court earlier this month refused an application filed by the Indian government seeking permission to appeal in Britain’s Supreme Court against the discharge of Bhandari in an extradition case, virtually ruling out chances of him being brought to the country to face the law.

ED filed a chargesheet in this case in 2023, alleging that Bhandari acquired the 12, Bryanston Square house in London in 2009 and got it renovated “as per the directions of Robert Vadra, who provided the funds for the renovation”.

Vadra has denied that he owns any London property directly or indirectly.

Terming the charges, a “political witch-hunt”, Vadra said he was being “hounded and harassed” to subserve political ends.

ED is also investigating Vadra in a separate money laundering case linked to alleged financial irregularities in a land deal in Rajasthan’s Bikaner.