The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Thursday told the Delhi High Court that businessman Robert Vadra had made false and incorrect submissions in his plea challenging a trial court order taking cognisance of a money laundering case arising out of alleged land transactions in Gurugram.
On April 16, the trial court had taken cognisance of the prosecution complaint filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, and issued summons to Vadra in connection with alleged irregularities relating to certain land transactions in Gurugram.
Appearing for the ED, Advocate Zoheb Hossain disputed Vadra’s contention that the scheduled offences invoked in the case were incorporated into the PMLA Schedule only after the alleged acts took place between 2008 and 2012.
Describing the submissions as ex facie false, Hossain urged the Court to impose costs on the petitioner. He submitted that a bare reading of the statutory framework showed that Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, had always formed part of the PMLA Schedule, contrary to the stand taken in the plea.
Earlier, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Vadra, argued that certain offences under the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, invoked in the case were added to the PMLA Schedule only after the alleged commission of the offences.
Singhvi contended that issues relating to jurisdiction and retrospective application of penal provisions had been specifically raised before the trial court but were not considered while passing the impugned order.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Manoj Jain adjourned the matter to May 18 after hearing the ED’s submissions. The High Court directed Singhvi to address the issue of retrospective applicability in detail on the next date of hearing, observing that the contention formed the central basis of the petitioner’s challenge.
The case pertains to a 2008 land transaction in Gurugram in which a company allegedly linked to Vadra purchased 3.5 acres of land for approximately Rs 7.5 crore through what the ED described as a fraudulent sale deed without payment of the declared consideration amount at the time of registration.
According to ED, the land transaction formed part of a larger conspiracy intended to facilitate the grant of a housing licence in the same village through alleged influence exercised over the then Haryana government headed by Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
The agency further alleged that after the licence was granted, the land was sold to DLF four years later for approximately Rs 58 crore. It further alleged that nearly 350 acres of land in Wazirabad, Gurugram, were improperly allotted to the company, resulting in alleged gains of nearly Rs 5,000 crore.
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