Delhi court refuses to stay Robert Vadra’s interrogation in PMLA case
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday refused to stay the interrogation of Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in a money laundering case and directed him to join the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) investigation on Tuesday.
The court has posted Vadra’s plea, seeking directions to stay the ED interrogation, for hearing on March 2.
Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar also directed the agency to supply Vadra with hard copies of the documents seized from him during raids conducted at his offices last year within five days.
Vadra had said in the application moved by him on Saturday that the agency has been interrogating him based on seized documents and, therefore, their copies should be provided to him.Senior advocate KTS Tulsi, appearing for Vadra, alleged that the agency wants to speed up the investigation and they are losing their patience as elections are approaching.
"ED is only interested in a political campaign. They have given us documents in electronic form which are not opening. I am seeking a stay on interrogation till the documents are given to me,” Tulsi said.
The court refused and said, “that we cannot do.”
Tulsi told the court that under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Vadra was entitled to get a copy of the documents. “I also should be able to read and understand the document. They show documents they want to rely on, not the ones that I want,” he said.
Special public prosecutor D P Singh, appearing for the agency, said that the ED can only give documents that were recovered from him, and not the entire documents which have been seized. Singh told the court that the seized documents run into 23,000 pages.
On December 7 last year, the agency had carried out raids at Vadra’s offices in Delhi. The court said Vadra will join investigation before the ED after it took up his plea for hearing. Vadra is facing probe in cases relating to purchase of alleged illegal assets abroad and an alleged land scam in Bikaner, Rajasthan.
Land scam alleged
Vadra has appeared before the ED for questioning on multiple occasions in Delhi and Jaipur. He had filed an anticipatory bail application in the case linked to allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a London-based property at 12, Bryanston Square worth 1.9 million pounds.
(With PTI inputs)