The Haryana government on Monday submitted to the Supreme Court the Justice (Retired) SN Dhingra probe panel report on irregularities in land deals in the state, ANI reported. The 182-page document implicates Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra in a number of questionable land deals that allegedly took place when the Congress was in power in the state between 2004 and 2014.
Vadra, who was seen visiting a temple in New Delhi on Monday, said it was his birthday and refused to comment on the report. He has often called the inquiry commission a “political witch-hunt” launched against him by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Haryana, the news agency said.
Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a veteran Congress leader, features prominently in the report for allegedly giving a few private companies, including Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality, undue advantages in procuring licences to develop four sectors in Gurugram. Justice Dhingra, a former judge of the Delhi High Court, had submitted the report to the Manohar Lal Khattar government last year but it had not been made public. The Supreme Court on April 13 had asked the state government to submit the report.
“I wouldn’t have submitted a 182-page report if there was no irregularity [in the grant of land licences in Gurugram],” Dhingra had said while submitting the report last year. He had declined to disclose the “irregularities” but had said that the Haryana government could make them public if it wished to. However, he did say that both private entities and government authorities had been involved in the illegal deals.
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