CAG findings on Vadra deals incorrect, ex-parte: Congress
Coming in defence of AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, the Congress on Thursday termed the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) findings accusing the previous Congress government in Haryana of giving undue favours to his company Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd in land deals as “factually incorrect and ex-parte”.
Coming in defence of AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, the Congress on Thursday termed the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) findings accusing the previous Congress government in Haryana of giving undue favours to his company Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd in land deals as “factually incorrect and ex-parte”.
Reacting to the news reports based on findings of Principal Accountant General (PAG), Haryana -- a subordinate office of the CAG -- AICC incharge, communications, Randeep Singh Surjewala, said the findings were neither borne out from record nor founded upon correct facts.
Stating that PAG had neither indicted previous Congress government nor Vadra nor his company for any violation of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975 or any rules or policy, he said that there was no such finding of wrongdoing as was being sought to be alleged and projected unfairly and incorrectly.
On the issue of deposit of profit beyond 15%, he said it applied only to ‘completed projects’. “As Skylight Hospitality Private Limited had sold/transferred its licence for 2.7 acres of land before completing the project, this condition did not apply at all. Hence, no law, rule or policy was violated by the previous Congress government”, he said.
He also asserted that the Haryana government had never received a single rupee in revenue towards 15% profit clause. “For this reason, Section 3(7) of the Haryana Act of 1975 provided that developer of a colony could either deposit profit beyond 15% or deposit ‘infrastructure augmentation charges’ in lieu thereof notified as `5 lakh per acre for Gurgaon. For 2.7 acres licence of Skylight Hospitality, this figure, at best, came to Rs 13.5 lakh,” he added.
According to the previous Congress government, this amount was not got deposited as project was not completed. “The news stories omitted to mention that report of PAG was an ex-parte report with the BJP government of Haryana refusing to reply to all the communications by PAG for politically motivated reasons,” he held.
Surjewala, in this context, referred to the non-reply by the town of country planning department to the audit para pertaining to the Vadra’s company.
The CAG report was tabled in the Haryana assembly on the last day of the budget session on Wednesday.
