India
The Enforcement Directorate said Manoj Arora is 'a key person who not only has the knowledge of facts relating to overseas undeclared assets of (Congress president Rahul Gandhi's son-in-law) Robert Vadra but was also instrumental in arranging funds for such assets'
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday moved the Patiala Hosue court, designated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act-2002, for issuing an open-ended non-bailable warrant against close-aide and executive assistant of Robert Vadra. Arora has been missing even after three summons and a look-out notice against him.
The plaint has been posted for Tuesday. An investigation into Sanjay Bhandari was launched in 2016 for not disclosing his foreign assets in the shape of foreign bank accounts and foreign immovable assets and thus evasion of tax.
The ED submitted to the court that questioning Arora was important for the agency as Arora is “a key person who is not only having the knowledge of facts relating to overseas undeclared assets of Robert Vadra but was also instrumental in arranging funds for such assets…”
The ED also apprised the court in its application that the income tax authorities had raided Bhandari’s premises and recovered digital evidence pertaining to a property, namely 12 Bryanstone Square in London, and email exchanges between Bhandari’s relative Sumit Chadha, Arora and Vadra, from which “it emerged that Vadra was “beneficially controlling” the property.
Vadra, according to the ED plaint to the court, was also “executing renovation work of this property through Sumit Chadha” and “also arranging funds for it”.
The ED claimed that payment of GBP 1.9 million for the property was “made from account number 1021497657901 of Santech International FZC UAE with Emirates NBD Al-Qusais Branch UAE”. “There is also a credit to the tune of GBP 1879000 on 30.06.2010 in the abovementioned bank account apparently from proceeds of the sale of the same property to Sky Lite Investment FZE, UAE. The abovementioned account belongs to Santech International FZC, a company controlled by Sanjay Bhandari,” the ED said.
According to the ED, Bhandari purchased the said property in London “in 2009 for GBP 1.9 million and sold in June 2010 for the same amount…Despite incurring additional expenses of approximately GBP 65,900 on the renovation of this property”.
The ED concluded that Bhandari was “not the actual owner of the property, but it was beneficially owned by Robert Vadra, who was incurring expenditure on the renovation of this property”.
To embellish its claims, the ED also referred to a mail from Chadha “enclosing therewith item-wise expenses incurred and expenditure projected in future for the said property even after the sale of the said property to Sky Lite Investment FZE”.
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