ED Arrests Two Men Associated With Robert Vadra-Linked Firm In Bikaner Land Scam Case

Two persons connected to the Bikaner land scam have been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Times of India has reported.

The arrested have been identified as Ashok Kumar and Jaiprakash Bagarwa. The ED said Kumar is a close associate of Mahesh Nagar of Skylight Hospitality Private Limited, a firm allegedly linked to Robert Vadra.

According to the ED, Nagar was the "authorised representative" in the four cases of land purchase in Bikaner by Skylight. Kumar is accused of buying land in the same area using "power of attorney" of others.

"Skylight Hospitality Pvt. Ltd had purchased 69.55-hectare land for Rs 72 lakh, sold it to Allegeny finlease Pvt Ltd for Rs 5.15 crore and earned huge profit of Rs 4.43 crore. Allegeny finlease Pvt. Ltd as a company is not involved in any real business activity and many of its shareholders were found to be non-existent during the investigation," a release by the ED said.

The ED had filed the case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in 2015 in the probe related to the purchase of 275 bigha land in Kolayat area of Bikaner. It suspects that money was laundered by people who purchased land at cheap rates using forged documents.

The probe agency issued notices to Skylight and also obtained documents from the firm.

Vadra, the brother-in-law of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, has not been named in the FIR filed by ED.

In their defence, both the company and Vadra have earlier claimed that they were themselves cheated. The Congress claims that the entire case is a witch-hunt.