On Thursday (December 27), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) named Robert Vadra for the first time in its supplementary chargesheet in the money laundering case against arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari. The ED established a direct connection between the Gandhi son-in-law Robert Vadra, CC Thampi and arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.
In the chargesheet, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s name has also featured. Priyanka has been named in connection with a dubious land purchase and sale to an individual named HL Pahwa. That story was first broken y OpIndia in 2019.
The ED on the 22nd of December told the Special Court that CC Thampi, who worked for the absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari, is a close aide of Robert Vadra – the husband of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The link has been established by the ED in the supplementary chargesheet filed against CC Thampi and Sumit Chadha (said to be a close relative of Sanjay Bhandari) in a money laundering case.
This is the first time that ED has named Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in their chargesheet. ED’s chargesheet confirms OpIndia’s 2019 newsbreak regarding the Gandhi connection to the dubious land deals. “Further, Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra wife of Sh. Robert Vadra also purchased agricultural land measuring 40 kanal (05 acres) in village Amipur, District Faridabad, Haryana from Sh. H.L. Pahwa in April, 2006…,” ED chargsheet reads.
Back in 2019, OpIndia had unearthed papers that linked Rahul Gandhi himself to Sanjay Bhandari through a string of dubious land deals involving HL Pahwa and CC Thampi – who the ED has now acknowledged is a close aide of Robert Vadra.
These papers are related to the ED search conducted on one HL Pahwa on 3rd May 2017 and 4th May 2017. The land dealings are between Rahul Gandhi and H L Pahwa who was funded by CC Thampi – CC Thampi was known to be a close aide of Robert Vadra.
As per the ED chargesheet filed in the PMLA court on 22nd December, CC Thampi has stated to ED that he was introduced to Robert Vadra by Sonia Gandhi’s PA Madhavan.
OpIndia revealed in 2019 that not only Rahul Gandhi but also Robert Vadra and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had purchased land from HL Pahwa. According to a sale deed dated 3 March 2008, Gurgaon resident HL Pahwa sold nine acres of land in Hasanpur village in Haryana’s Palwal district to Robert Vadra for Rs 36.9 lakh. In addition, a sale record from Rajasthan’s Bikaner district shows that Sarita Devi Bothra, 42, sold 4.63 acres of land in Basti village in Ganganagar tehsil for Rs 8.5 lakh to Real Earth Estate Private Limited, a New Delhi-based company, in April 2009. Notably, Robert Vadra is the company’s director.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has also bought land from HL Pahwa. OpIndia earlier reported that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra purchased land and then sold it for an inflated price to the same person four years later. The person in question was also HL Pahwa. On April 28, 2006, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra purchased land from HL Pahwa for Rs. 15,00,000 in two cheques, and subsequently sold it back to HL Pahwa for Rs. 84,15,006 via multiple cheques on February 17, 2010.
As reported earlier, here the link between HL Pahwa and CC Thampi emerges. When Priyanka Gandhi Vadra sold the land back to HL Pahwa at an exorbitant price, Pahwa repaid Gandhi in five instalments between May 22nd and September 11th, 2009. The stated reason for the instalment payment was ‘non-availability of funds’.
CC Thampi was arrested in 2020 and is currently out on bail. In February 2019, Robert Vadra was grilled for over 5 hours for his alleged links to CC Thampi. The Enforcement Directorate suspects kickbacks for a petroleum deal in 2009 were routed through the Sharjah-based company, allegedly controlled by a UAE-based NRI businessman, CC Thampi. Vadra was also questioned about owning Benami property in London along with CC Thampi and Sanjay Bhandari. Thampi has a company in UAE called Sky Light and in India, Skylight Hospitality Private Limited is allegedly linked to Vadra and is under the ED scanner for suspect land deals in Bikaner, Rajasthan. ED had served him a show-cause notice last year for violation of laws in the acquisition of agricultural and other lands in and around Delhi-NCR in deals amounting to over Rs 288 crore.
The ED chargesheet mentions that between 2005 and 2008 Thampi purchased around 486 acres of land from Pahwa in the same Amipur village in Faridabad. The chargesheet mentions that Pahwa was receiving cash ‘out of the books’ when Priyanka sold the land to him. Also, Robert Vadra reportedly did not pay the entire sale consideration to Pahwa.
CC Thampi is accused number 7 in the ED’s PMLA case against Sanjay Bhandari and associates.
