The 56-year-old walked down from his residence at Sujan Singh Park in central Delhi to the ED headquarters on APJ Abdul Kalam Road, a two-km stretch.
Speaking to reporters on way to the ED office, he charged, “This is nothing but political vendetta. Whenever I speak for minorities they try to stop me, crush us… they tried to stop Rahul (Gandhi) in Parliament too. This is misuse of agencies and this is political vendetta”.
I will cooperate with them like in the past, he added.
Vadra was first summoned in this case on April 8 but he did not depose and sought a fresh date, the sources said.
The probe against Vadra, whose wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is the Congress MP from Kerala’s Wayanad, is linked to a land deal in Haryana’s Shikohpur.
The probe pertains to a land deal of February 2008 where a company linked to Vadra– Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd– purchased a piece of 3.5 acre land in Shikohpur in Gurugram from a firm named Onkareshwar Properties at a price of Rs 7.5 crore.
It is alleged that the mutation of this land was done within hours. The Haryana Police had filed a case in this deal in 2018.
The ED will record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said.
Vadra has been questioned multiple times by the federal probe agency in a different money laundering case.
The ED had filed a chargesheet in December 2023 against UAE-based NRI businessman C C Thampi, who is allegedly linked to Vadra, and Sumit Chadha, a relative of UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari, saying it was investigating the purchase of three plots of land in Haryana during 2005-06 by Vadra from a real estate agent along with a land deal made by his wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Neither Vadra or Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were named as accused in the chargesheet.
Thampi, the ED had said, had purchased about 486 acres of land between 2005 and 2008 in Amirpur village in Faridabad in Haryana through H L Pahwa, a Delhi-NCR based real estate agent.
“It is imperative to mention that Robert Vadra also purchased three pieces of land measuring 334 kanals (40.08 acres) in Amirpur from H L Pahwa from 2005-2006 and sold the same land to H L Pahwa in December 2010,” it said in the chargesheet “Further, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra wife of Robert Vadra also purchased agricultural land measuring 40 kanal (05 acres) in village Amirpur, district Faridabad, Haryana, from H L Pahwa in April 2006 and sold the same land to H L Pahwa in February 2010,” the ED stated.
It said that “Pahwa was receiving cash out of the books for the purpose of acquisition of land”.
“It was also noticed that Robert Vadra did not pay the entire consideration to Pahwa. The investigation in this regard is still ongoing,” the ED said. PTI NES DV DV
