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Gurugram land deal: SIT reconstituted to speed up probe against Hooda, Vadra
The SIT has been reconstituted to give “impetus to the probe” after a slap on the wrist by a Punjab and Haryana high court bench monitoring the timeline of cases against MPs and MLAs. Though being done in response to HC’s rap, the move also has political undertones as the state assembly and Lok Sabha polls are due next year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Haryana government has reconstituted the special investigation team (SIT) probing a first information report (FIR) pertaining to suspected irregularities in a land transaction between Sky Light Hospitality and realty major DLF Ltd in Gurugram’s Shikohpur.
The SIT has been reconstituted to give “impetus to the probe” after a slap on the wrist by a Punjab and Haryana high court bench monitoring the timeline of cases against MPs and MLAs. The HC, on January 19, said that as far as Haryana is concerned, the reasons, which have been given, show that time is being whiled away for one reason or the other. The court also observed that it appears that the investigating agencies take it as a routine to get an affidavit filed, which merely fills up the gaps for the sake of it without there being actual progress.
Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is a director of Sky Light Hospitality and the deal took place when the Congress was in power in the state with Bhupinder Singh Hooda as the chief minister.
The BJP had made the alleged corruption and nepotism in the land deal, an issue in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The reconstitution of SIT, though being done in response to the HC rap, also has political undertones as the state assembly and Lok Sabha elections are slated for 2024.
Hooda, on being asked about the case, said there was no illegality in the matter as it was purely a business transaction between private parties. “The issue is raked up by the BJP time and again just to conceal its own failures,” he said. Vadra’s counsel, Suman Khaitan, did not respond to request for a telephonic interview on the matter.
The Gurugram police had on September 1, 2018, registered a criminal case against Hooda, Vadra and others under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document or electronic record as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13 of Prevention of Corruption Act (criminal misconduct by a public servant).
However, the investigations in the case crawled at a slow pace with the police taking a plea of non-availability of the entire official record.
Civil officers roped in to assist the cops
The SIT, reconstituted on April 7, is headed by Gurugram deputy commissioner of police, traffic, Virender Vij, and has two ACP-rank officers Suresh Panghal and Vikas Kaushik, an inspector Rajender and ASI Pawan. However, since chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar felt that officers well-versed with land revenue and town and country planning laws and regulations would be needed to assist the cops, the state government has nominated IAS officer Mukul Kumar, who is also a former OSD to Khattar, and former chief town planner Dilbagh Sihag to lend assistance to the SIT on technical issues.
What was the land transaction
The land deal involved Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality, Onkareshwar properties and DLF in Gurugram’s Shikohpur village (Sector 83). Sky Light was granted a real-estate development licence by the town and country planning department for developing a commercial colony on 2.701 acres in revenue estate of Shikohpur village (now Sector 83), Gurugram, on December 15, 2008, during Hooda’s reign as CM. Later, Sky Light, by way of a sale deed of September 18, 2012, sold 3.53 acres, including the licensed area of 2.701 acres, to DLF for ₹58 crore. The licence was cancelled by the department after seven years on March 9, 2022. The private transaction came into spotlight after Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka, on October 15, 2012, cancelled the mutation of the land in his capacity as director, consolidation of holdings.
A committee of officers, constituted by the then state government, had termed Khemka’s orders to cancel the mutation as inappropriate and without jurisdiction.
Commission of inquiry quashed by HC
The BJP, after winning Haryana in 2014, had set up a commission of inquiry under Justice SN Dhingra (retd) in 2015 to probe issues pertaining to grant of commercial licence to Sky Light. The Punjab and Haryana HC, however, on January 10, 2019, quashed the report of the commission of inquiry, citing procedural flaws and restrained the state government from making it public. However, the HC said the state government would be at liberty to appoint a new commission of inquiry on the same subject matter. The government though did not appoint one.
Legal loopholes in the FIR
The FIR against the former CM has been termed as legally unsustainable by legal experts as the police did not take prior approval of the state government under Section 17-A of the amended Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act before registering it. The amended law makes it mandatory to take prior approval before registering a PC Act case against a former or sitting public servant.
Justice KM Joseph of the Supreme Court in a November 14, 2019, order had said that even proceeding on the basis that on petitioners’ complaint, an FIR must be registered as it purports to disclose cognisable offences and the court must so direct, will it not be a futile exercise having regard to Section 17-A of the PC Act.
Senior criminal lawyer Vikram Chaudhri said that if the offending act falls within the sweep of Section 17-A of PC Act, it is mandatory to seek previous approval of the authority concerned before embarking upon any enquiry, inquiry or investigation. “Therefore, the procedure under Section 17-A is the mandate and any breach would result in vitiation of the proceedings,” he said.
Left red-faced over this gaffe, the government subsequently on November 29, 2018, took ex post facto approval from the governor to conduct an investigation into the offences alleged to have been committed by the former chief minister in the FIR.
